PositiveLos Angeles Times\"The first-lady memoir is a rite of passage, but Obama\'s is different by virtue of her very identity. Becoming takes her historic status as the first black woman to serve as first lady and melds it deftly into the American narrative ... her memoir is not a Washington read full of gossip and political score-settling—though she does lay bare her deep, quaking disdain for Trump, who she believes put her family\'s safety at risk with his vehement promotion of the false birther conspiracy theory ... Inevitably, her memoir will be compared to those of other first ladies. Her focus on owning one’s own unique story sets her book apart, but it is similar to Laura Bush\'s in one respect. Both women most deeply excavate the part of their life before the presidency enters.\
Helene Cooper
RaveThe Washington Post...[an] expansive and penetrating narrative of a country, Liberia, that sweeps across continents and time ... Cooper, a New York Times Pentagon correspondent who was born in Liberia and won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Ebola crisis there, writes vividly and with authority. In the book’s closing chapters she captures the poignant — and sometimes difficult to read — tales of mothers dying because they had cared for their sick children, and adult children contracting Ebola as they cared for their mothers ... impressive for both its detail and the insight it provides into a historic figure. Throughout, she offers an unflinching look at the reserved Sirleaf’s personal life and presidency, which comes to an end this year, while also telling of Liberia’s pain and pride.
