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Becoming
By Michelle Obama
Crown, 9781524763138, November 2018, 448pp.

The Short of It:

I wanted to end the year on a positive note so it’s no coincidence that I ended it with Becoming.

The Rest of It:

In Becoming, Michelle Obama invites us into her life. From Chicago’s South Side, where she grew up, all the way to the White House until now. Her storytelling, her positivity and hopefulness take center stage. As Americas’s first African-American First Lady, she was in a position to advocate for young women, which she absolutely did, while raising her own two girls and supporting her husband in a job that put both of them under the media’s microscope.

It seems as if everyone received this book for Christmas or felt it was an important enough read to buy it for themselves, which I did. What I admire the most about this memoir is the storytelling. It’s engaging and straight-forward, much as I expected it to be based on how she’s carried herself throughout her eight years in the White House.

It’s been a rough, rough year. The end if the year has come and I am totally wiped out. However, ending the year with this book has given me a little spark of hope. If she can stand back and look at our current administration and still feel hopeful, perhaps I can too.

Source: Purchased
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Killing Commendatore
By Haruki Murakami
Knopf, 9780525520047, October 2018, 704pp.

The Short of It:

In my opinion, this is one of his most linear works and yet it possesses all of the key elements that Murakami fans have come to expect from his work.

The Rest of It:

I spent a lot of time reading this one. Not because it was long and dense, but because each and every sentence begged to be read again. Much of it was beautifully written, but some of it was puzzling which is why I love Murakami so much. He takes an idea and just goes with it.

In this story, an artist, recently separated from his wife, heads to a remote, hilltop home to do what he does best, paint. But in this house he finds a painting that basically, changes his life. The painting titled, Killing Commendatore, is a violent depiction of what is basically an assassination. An “idea” takes the shape of a very small man. There is a deep pit in the forest which will remind readers of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. There’s a young girl, a faceless guy, a menacing man who drives a Subaru, an impressionable aunt, and a very mysterious man who lives in a white mansion across the way.

If you ever felt intimidated by Murakami in the past, this is the book for you. I think there is a lot to relate to in this one. The overall theme of loneliness, isolation, what it means to be married and loved and generally, what can be found at the core of each human being and how that can shift depending on the circumstances.

I can see Murakami winning an award for this one. It seems to embody everything he’s ever written and yet remain so unique. I highly recommend it.

Source: Purchased
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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