This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir

This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir by Cecily Strong, Simon & Shuster 

Cecily Strong is known for her sharp humor and comedic stylings on Saturday Night Live. Watching her on screen, you might not expect her first foray into publishing to be a deeply moving emotional memoir, but that is exactly what she has delivered. And, though it is filled with the raw pain that grief always delivers, I must say it is lovely. Of course, it has a comedic vein running throughout each entry, but it is a book in which she is primarily concerned with trying to come to terms with her after.  

Losing her cousin Owen right before COVID, Cecily is launched into a year of navigating her journey through grief during the chaos and terror of the pandemic—all while falling for a man who happens to get COVID himself and ends up in the hospital. In entries filled with love and light amid the darkness, she shares her experience fighting with depression and anxiety, and memories of past romances and friends long gone. Chief among those friends is her cousin.  

...I was afraid to talk too much or share too much of this loss for many reasons. It would mean acknowledging something as real when I wasn't ready to, I wasn’t sure it was my loss to share, and I was afraid of never being a good enough writer to properly honor him... 

Her daily feelings—confusion, grief, doubt, all while trying to just get through to the next day crying or laughing—are those of a woman reaching out and coming to terms with the loss she has endured but also finding her new normal. They are feelings that most of us can relate to after the past year, but Cecily writes with such emotion that you can feel them through the page. We get to witness this amazing woman grow love for herself and become okay with where she is in her life's journey, trying to understand her past and present, and hold out hope for the future.  

I don’t even want to say it out loud, but wouldn’t it be amazing, after all of these days in isolation trying to find magic and trying to learn how to grieve Owen and grieve Hal and just plain grieve; after all these days with nothing to take up space around me, leaving room for all the ghosts from my life to stop by for a while, making it so I’d have to look at them; after all these days in rain where I looked for any sunshine because it’s what Owen would have done—if maybe I get a happy ending?  

This Will All Be Over Soon is an incredibly sincere memoir of a woman trying to grapple with grief, the pandemic, and how to move forward from the depths of life's woes all while falling in love.