Customer Reviews

Michelle: A Biography

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This is not the definitive biography of Michelle Obama. But it will do for now, at least until the next bio, Michelle Obama: Grace and Intelligence in a Time of Change, comes out at the end of November. (Actually, if you have Kindle you can download the newer biography now.) Liza Mundy's biography is short and padded, but I can't blame her for that. Michelle Obama is only 44 years old and while she is smart, ambitious, determined, and full of admirable qualities, the most remarkable thing she has done so far is to marry Barack Obama. It's hard to make much of a biography out of that. But Mundy has buckled down and done what she can, considering the lack of material and the fact that she wasn't able to interview Michelle Obama for this book.

Michelle and her older brother Craig grew up in Chicago and because their parents emphasized the importance of education, both of them ended up graduating from Princeton. Michelle continued on to Harvard Law School and took her law degree to various jobs in Chicago. She did well at all her jobs, but left others with the impression that she was restless and bored with those jobs, although she did quite well at all of the jobs.

I think I learned more about Barack Obama from this book than I did about Michelle. That's okay. My impression from this book is that while Michelle still hasn't found a job that she is passionate about, other than being a mother of course, she recognizes that Barack has focus and passion and wants to do what she can to help him realize his goals, for himself and for the country.

Before reading this book, I hadn't read either of Barack Obama's books, (Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope), or any of the books about his life. From this bio about Michelle, I learned that Barack went to law school only after he realized that he needed to learn about law to better help the communities he was working in in Chicago. He became a member of a church when he realized that would also help him be a more credible member of the community. He ran for office in Illinois when that appeared to be the way to create the changes he was seeking. All that hard work has taken a toll on his own family though. For most of the their marriage, Barack has been a weekend husband and father, and it doesn't appear that that situation will be improving anytime soon.

Michelle: A Biography is a short book, 217 pages including end notes. There's no index. It isn't a fluffy celebrity bio, but it isn't a full-fledged scholarly biography either. It's an unfinished work, if only because Michelle Obama has yet to do anything biography-worthy. She is obviously a smart, accomplished, elegant woman who will be an excellent diplomat in the White House and ambassador to the rest of the world. Expect a full-fledged biography in four or eight more years.

Liza Munday ought to be ashamed of herself. Instead of a biography, she has offered weak inerviews, innuendo, and miscellaneous opinion. I am especially disappointed at her inclusion of Debra Dickerson, a Michelle Obama critic, but the fact is that Munday had so little to go on that she had to pad the book with interviews from people who had scant knowledge of Michelle Obama. It's great that interest in Michelle Obama is so high, but it is extraordinarily exploitative for Munday to have offered us such a weak product in the name of biogrpahy. Don't waste your money on this book. Wait for the real deal from a real biographer.

I was really excited to have an opportunity to read about Michelle Obama's life. How did she get to Princeton? Harvard? As a woman and an African American she's an amazing person and I wanted to know more. This book did not answer my questions. Instead, it started with a history of Chicago. The author speculated in this portion of the book that Michelle's family lived in this house or neighborhood "according to voter registration" records. It moves (slowly) into Michelle's younger years and gives a history of the high school she attended but, again, doesn't tell you much more about Michelle than you could get from public records. There are a few quotes from students who attended the same school but not much from people who actually knew her.

The section about her college years was more about the history of African Americans at Princeton and Harvard. People interviewed for these chapters weren't Michelle Robinson Obama's friends and the chapters were actually rather negative - talking mostly about how she stuck with the other African American students. It really read more like the author had an agenda to put Michelle Obama down as someone who was extremely prejudiced instead of the amazing, intelligent woman who overcame racism to get an ivy league law degree.

The final chapters talk a lot about Barack Obama and how the two used their careers and connections to help each other. I still have most of the last chapter left to read and, honestly, I don't know if I can force myself to finish it. I'm tired of reading lines like "according to voter registration records" and "according to someone who has a website about black Americans, they think...". The author was not granted interviews with friends and family and especially not the Obama's but she chose to write the book anyway and it shows. There's very little first hand information to tell you who Michelle Obama really is.

I don't recommend this book.

This book just isn't that great. It's very short...extremely short. It's right around 200 pages. It almost seems like the author just wanted to make a quick buck to get this book out before the election. It wasn't detailed at all. Her childhood in the book was more about the history of Chicago and race relations. I would have enjoyed more stories about Craig, her brother, and Michelle growing up with a "middle class" family in the South Side of Chicago. The pages on her college years at Princeton were thin. Mostly discussing her thinking on her future instead of what she learned and how she changed there. In the book after she met Barack Obama, it was like the book changed to more of a book looking at him instead of Michelle. I felt the book almost became mean spirited about Michelle and how she treats Barack. If someone hasn't heard Michelle Obama speak about her past then this is a good quick book to get a taste of where she's from and who she is, but if you are looking for an in-depth study or biography about her then you aren't going to get it. Wait for this one on the bargain tables.

The book seems like an opinion piece on Michelle, set on pointing out as many contradictions that the author can drum up. Time after time, the author points out an opinion that Michelle holds, then "innocently" sets out to prove that it is not true. It's an opinion, so it's neither true or false but the author somehow manages to note that Michelle's opinions, perceptions, or point of views are off the mark. Like another reviewer, I am forcing myself through the last pages. I am really excited about a book that actually captures Michelle's childhood and her real drive on what got her to where she is today.

On a positive note, the author does manage to piece little bits of data into an easy read.

I was so excited to read this book, but could not have been more disappointed. Unfortunately, the best part of this book was the cover. I appreciate the fact that the author did not have direct access to Michelle Obama, but what I found distasteful, were Liza Mundy's personal negative comments and conclusions that she made based on the snippets of information that she accumulated. She presented these conclusions as if they were logical, with the assurance that her readers were not bright enough to see the fallacy in her thinking and writing. I am sure that many of the people she interviewed wished they had never spoken to her. In addition to the content, the chapters were long and boring. I will recommend this book to no one, and will actively discourage readers from wasting their time on this trivia.

Not enough supstance. The book does not let you know Michelle; it speculates! It has too many secondary sources and not enough primary sources.

Author, Liza Mundy chronicles the life of charismatic, candid and sometimes controversial Michelle Obama. Given that this biography was written during Barack Obama's 2008 bid for President of the United States, the campaign refused the author access to the Obama's and encouraged those close to the couple not to participate in this project. Clearly, the author attempts to paint a complete picture of this fascinating subject, but with input from sources on the peripheral of Ms. Obama's world, the work falls short. Michelle: A Biography relates an interesting history lesson about Chicago and its politics, and is filled with many well researched facts about her life. Yet, it fails to draw an emotional connection or capture the essence of Michelle Obama.

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I was graetly disappointed in the product. I found Lisa Mundy's book to be much less a biography than a critique of Michelle Obama and the African American community. It seemed that Ms. Mundy took great journalistic license in order to promulgate myths and stereotypes long held regarding black people.In the future I will be more discriminating in my choices and rely on more input from other readers before making reading purchases. As always I am more than satisfied with quality service delivered by AMAZON.

I was very disappointed in this book. I thought I would be getting a biography of Michelle and this definitely was not. I wanted to know about her growing up years to where she is at now, not all the information about Chicago and the schools she attended.