Becoming
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As the first African American First Lady of the United States, she helped create the most welcoming White House in history while championing women and girls worldwide. Now she invites you into her world with this deeply personal memoir.
From her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Michelle Obama’s journey is one of determination and grace. She chronicles her years as an attorney at a Chicago law firm, where she met a brilliant summer associate named Barack Obama. She also traces her transition from corporate law to public service and the challenges of balancing motherhood with a demanding career. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and disappointments, both public and private.
Through the whirlwind of Barack’s political rise, from the Illinois State Senate to an improbable presidential campaign, Michelle shares the intimate struggles and joys of raising two daughters under an unforgiving media glare. She reveals her work on the Let’s Move campaign, her role as “head mom in chief,” and the extraordinary experience of eight years in the White House.
Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations, and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Interesting Facts
Record-Breaking First Day Sales: Becoming sold 725,000 copies in all formats on its first day of publication, making it the largest single-day sales total for any book published by Penguin Random House in 2018. The book became the best-selling book of 2018 in just 15 days, with over 2 million copies sold.
Fastest-Selling Memoir in History: By March 2019, Becoming had sold 10 million copies worldwide, positioning it to potentially become the best-selling memoir ever written. The book has since sold more than 14 million copies globally, outselling both of Barack Obama’s previous memoirs combined.
Arena-Sized Book Tour: Michelle’s book tour was conducted in massive sports arenas rather than traditional bookstores or theaters, starting at Chicago’s United Center where she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. The tour was so popular it expanded from 12 venues in 10 cities to 33 total events, including 21 additional cities across North America and Europe.
Grammy Award Winner: Michelle Obama won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for narrating the audiobook version of Becoming herself. This was her first Grammy, and she later won a second Grammy in 2024 for narrating The Light We Carry.
Massive Charitable Donation: One million copies of Becoming were donated to First Book, an American nonprofit organization that provides books to children. Additionally, 10 percent of ticket inventory for each tour stop (nearly 15,000 tickets total) was donated to local charities, schools, and community groups.
Published in 44 Languages: The book was released simultaneously in 24 languages at launch and eventually published in 44 languages worldwide, becoming a number one bestseller in 12 countries beyond the United States.
Questlove Created a Soundtrack: Musician Questlove curated a special soundtrack for the book called The Michelle Obama Musiaqualogy, featuring almost 600 songs across three volumes. The playlist included artists like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Ella Fitzgerald, and was played live at tour venues.
Candid Fertility Revelations: In the memoir, Michelle reveals that she suffered a miscarriage and that both daughters Malia and Sasha were conceived through IVF treatments when she was 34 and 35 years old. She wrote about administering fertility shots to herself while Barack was at the state legislature, hoping to destigmatize conversations about fertility struggles.
Netflix Documentary Released: In May 2020, a documentary film based on the book was released on Netflix. It follows Michelle through her book tour, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and clips of her conversations with moderators including Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert.
Three-Part Structure: The 448-page memoir is divided into three distinct sections: “Becoming Me” covers her childhood on Chicago’s South Side through meeting Barack at Sidley Austin law firm, “Becoming Us” follows their relationship and his entry into politics, and “Becoming More” chronicles their White House years and her Let’s Move campaign.
Oprah’s Book Club Selection: Becoming was chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club pick and won the NAACP Image Award. It also received the British Book Awards for Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year and Audiobook of the Year in 2019.
Quotes
"Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end." - Michelle Obama
"If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others." - Michelle Obama
"For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end." - Michelle Obama
"Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?" - Michelle Obama
"Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear." - Michelle Obama
"Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again." - Michelle Obama
"Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own." - Michelle Obama
"failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result." - Michelle Obama
"Everyone on Earth, they'd tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance." - Michelle Obama
"Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people." - Michelle Obama
"Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances." - Michelle Obama
"At fifty-four, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be." - Michelle Obama
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