This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir

This book is…different. I think you have to be a certain place emotionally and mentally to appreciate it, and I just wasn’t there.

Cecily Strong is one of my all-time favorite SNL players. She’s hilarious. I bought this book brand-new, specifically because I wanted to support her.

You need to forget that she’s on SNL. The author of the book is not the same woman you see on TV.

The book is a memoir of the last 18 months. Right at the start of COVID, she got news that her favorite cousin was dying of brain cancer. When COVID began, she moved to upstate New York with some friends and rode out the pandemic in the Hudson Valley. Right before that, she started dating someone new.

This book is a stream-of-consciousness about all of that. Strong is very emotional, and often very fragile. She struggles deeply with her cousin’s death, with the state of the world, and with her new romance.

The book is at its best when she goes deeply into her own history, telling the story of her first love (he was abusive), and some of her history (like when she was expelled for somewhat innocently being in possession of a bag of pot). I found the book much less interesting when Strong drops into poetry or strange interpretation.

This book is not for everyone. If you’ve lost someone close, and you have a personality like the author’s, it might speak to you. As for me, some of it was good, but most of it was lost.