I tend to intellectualize things. Things like life, culture, social interaction, language. I like to see what our words and actions really mean, see what makes the world tick, see it for the complex system of signs and symbols it is. I should have taken more sociology in school.

I also, in the interest of full disclosure, like our current president, voted for him and eat arugula, so of course my enjoyment of this book stems partially from those preferences. But the other part of me that enjoyed this read comes from the way Obama describes himself intellectualizing as I do, dissecting himself and his place in the world in a way that both made sense and entertained me.

Half black and half white, growing up among the white part of his family, he has no one to teach him how to be black. No one can tell him how to exist in both worlds, or if that’s even possible. And so this book is the story of his journey to become comfortable in his skin and find his place — his unique, personal place — in society at large.

From his college days:

The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture has individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don’t have to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselvs in the crowd, America’s happy, faceless marketplace; and we’re never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us of the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every day of the lives — although that’s what we tell ourselves — but because we’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.

Don’t you know who I am? I’m an individual!

No, he’s not a Pulitzer Prize-winning genius writer, but he does know how to tell a straight-forward, descriptive and interesting story. (As a writer, I know that’s quite a feat itself. I’ve met and helped many who couldn’t.) But I wasn’t really in this book for its literary value. I wanted to know Obama’s story in detail. I wanted to know how he came to be the man he is, if he’s for real. And because I admire him, I wanted to know how he came to be the person he is today. Without being dry or boring, this book certainly quenched my thirst.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – Vacation book-club reading