RaveThe Washington Post... heart-wrenching ... painfully and poignantly shows us that life goes on, even when a parent is not there ... Ford pieces together her childhood through intimate storytelling. You see the world through a child’s eyes and feel the pain that a child feels. Sometimes her story makes you laugh out loud; sometimes it makes you weep. This is a soul-stirring tale of a child contending with \'big feelings\' and, later, a teenager becoming a woman ... The process of becoming and self-discovery is just as harrowing and cruel as it is beautiful and full of joy and wonder. There are moments when you wince and wish you could protect young Ashley from an unkind world; reassure her that she is beautiful, special and innocent; and keep her safe from the brutal experiences of physical and sexual violence ... There is a universality in the themes that Somebody’s Daughter presents that many readers will recognize and understand, but at its core, this is a story about the complexity and vulnerability in Black women’s lives, told firsthand by a Black woman. This is \'Black Girl Magic\' at its very finest and its most unapologetic. Ford helps to fill a gap in the literature on African American women’s lives ... Perhaps the greatest contribution Ford makes is to offer her story — written in the most lively and lucid prose — in its most raw and unabridged form .. .By telling her truth so honestly and authentically, Ford invites us to tell ours, too.
Michelle Obama
RaveSan Francisco Chronicle\"Reading Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, feels like catching up with an old friend over a lazy afternoon. Parts of her story are familiar, but still, you lean in, eager to hear them again. Other parts are new and come as a surprise. Sometimes her story makes you laugh out loud and shake your head with a gentle knowingness. Some parts are painful to hear. You wince and wish that you could have protected her from an unkind world ... Becoming shatters the mold, too. Not only because Obama writes in her signature tell-it-like-it-is style, but because she steeps her story in the richness and complexity of African American history that seldom reaches national audiences ... What greater mark on the world could Obama possibly make? Becoming — the title alone — makes it plain that Obama will always perceive herself in a constant state of evolving.\
