Amy Sherald, First Lady Michelle Obama, 2018
(August 28) I really enjoyed this and am sorry I’m finished and won’t have “Michelle” to “talk to” every day. I just loved her voice and her point of view on everything that ever happened to her. I didn’t think I would like the book very much, because two friends were reading it back in April when it first came out and both said they found it kind of grocery-listish and without self-insight.
But I did not find it that way at all -- Obama was very astute about her own motivations and decisions in life, I thought.
Moreover, she knew what to share about being a black kid on the south side of Chicago and being First Lady of the United States.
The book is natural, like you're talking to her, but also profound.
She very politely gets her own back with those who criticized her as a campaign wife and First Lady, and those who were unsupportive when she was growing up. (In the first category: Christopher Hitchens, you asshole.)
I always liked Michelle Obama -- I liked her from the beginning, in 2003, when she began showing up in my blogs as a fashion influence. Like, yes, she had that, too. She was smart, she could speak well, she could dance, she looked amazing, she had the sexiest arms ever seen on a woman, she was a lawyer and a devoted mom, and her style was infectious.
I remember getting a little “diamond” peace-sign necklace because she was wearing one all the time in that first campaign (anti Iraq war). I belted cardigans over dresses. I took pride in bare arms.
I liked everything she did as a First Lady and I think she hit levels of perfection as FLOTUS that future FLOTI will have trouble matching.
And now she writes a great book (smh).
