Michelle Obama’s New Memoir Addresses Our Secrets

Get excited because Michelle Obama just published her memoir Becoming! The book touches on her childhood, meeting and falling in love with Barack Obama, what it was like to work on his political campaigns, the trials, and tribulations of motherhood, and how she shielded her family from the nastiness of politics all while being the first Black First Lady of the United States.

We don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but we’ll just say that this book is personal, heartfelt, and of course real.

We were especially moved by her frank discussion of her struggle to get pregnant and her experience with IVF (In-Vitro-Fertilization). “It turns out that even two committed go-getters with a deep love and a robust work ethic can’t will themselves into being pregnant,” she writes. “Fertility is not something you conquer.” Yes! We love that Michelle is normalizing something that many women undergo, but few talk about because of the misperception that this is unusual or something to be ashamed of.

In a recent interview promoting the book with Robin Roberts for Good Morning America, Michelle shared that she had a miscarriage when she was trying to conceive. “I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them.” She urges women to share these truths about our bodies so that we don’t feel this pain alone. It’s rare for a former First Lady to speak with such candor and reveal so many painful and personal memories, but Michelle believes she has a responsibility to share her true story so others won’t be afraid to share theirs.

It goes without saying that this book is a must-read. Shonda Rimes wrote about the book and her experience joining Michelle and other Black women powerhouses in a special pre-release book club discussion.

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YES @MichelleObama hosted a secret book club for #Becoming and YES @shondarhimes was there 😱 Link in bio for an inside look 👀 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 📸: Lawrence Jackson

A post shared by Shondaland (@byshondaland) on Nov 12, 2018 at 4:42pm PST

If you want a chance to win a copy of Becoming, join our Upspoken Facebook group, invite 3 friends to join by clicking the “Invite” button, and tag them in the comments section of this post. Want more chances to win? Every time you share a post in the group you’ll get 1 more entry! The deadline for entries is 11/30.