If you liked
Books like Becoming
by Michelle Obama
Becoming is Michelle Obama's memoir of growing up on the South Side of Chicago, building a career and a marriage, and remaking the role of First Lady on her own terms. It is warm, candid and genuinely inspiring. If you want more memoirs of a life built against the odds, these are the reads.
The shortlist
What to read next
A Promised Landby Barack Obama
“A Promised Land by Barack Obama 2020 review. The first volume of Barack Obama's presidential memoirs, covering his early political life through the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. The most thoroughly written contemporary presidential memoir in modern American letters.”
Educatedby Tara Westover
“Educated by Tara Westover 2018 review. The memoir of growing up in a survivalist Idaho family that kept her out of school until age seventeen, and her subsequent education through Brigham Young University and Cambridge. The PEN/Bingham winner and one of the canonical contemporary memoirs.”
Born a Crimeby Trevor Noah
“Born a Crime by Trevor Noah 2016 review. Trevor Noah's memoir of growing up mixed-race in late-apartheid and early-post-apartheid South Africa. The canonical contemporary South African memoir.”
Between the World and Meby Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 review. A book-length letter to his fifteen-year-old son about race in America. National Book Award winner.”
Crying in H Martby Michelle Zauner
“Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 2021 review. Michelle Zauner's memoir about her Korean mother's death from pancreatic cancer and the Korean food that connected them. The breakout literary commercial memoir of 2021.”
Just Mercyby Bryan Stevenson
“Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson 2014 review. The Equal Justice Initiative founder's memoir of his Alabama capital-case work. Carnegie Medal winner and the basis for the 2019 film.”
FAQ
Common questions about Becoming read-alikes
- I want the companion volume.
- A Promised Land by Barack Obama is the obvious pairing, his account of the same years from inside the presidency. Read together with Becoming, they give you both halves of one remarkable partnership and era.
- I want another memoir of transformation.
- Educated by Tara Westover and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah are the two most-recommended: one a woman escaping an off-grid family into education, the other a boy surviving apartheid with a fearless mother. Both share Becoming's arc of building a self against the odds.
- I want to go deeper on race and America.
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson are the essential picks, one a letter to a son, the other a fight for people the justice system discarded. Both widen the context around Becoming's personal story.
- I want a memoir centered on family and grief.
- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner centers a mother, food and loss with the same honesty Michelle Obama brings to her own family. A quieter, sadder read that hits an adjacent nerve.
The original