This too shall pass by Milena Busquets

this-too-shall-pass

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Pages: 176

Published May 24th 2016

Blanca is forty years old and motherless. Shaken by the unexpected death of the most important person in her life, she suddenly realizes that she has no idea what her future will look like.

To ease her dizzying grief and confusion, Blanca turns to her dearest friends, her closest family, and a change of scenery. Leaving Barcelona behind, she returns to Cadaqués on the coast, accompanied by her two sons, two ex-husbands, and two best friends, and makes a plan to meet her married lover for a few stolen moments as well. Surrounded by those she loves most, she spends the summer in an impossibly beautiful place, finding ways to reconnect and understand what it means to truly, happily live on her own terms, just as her mother would have wanted.

A fresh, honest, and ruefully funny story about love, sex, marriage, grief, friendship and parenthood, THIS TOO SHALL PASS is an irresistible novel that is fast becoming an international phenomenon.

Blanca is 40 years old and has just lost her mother. She has two children from two ex-husbands. The book begins with Blanca coming to terms with her mother’s slow, painful death and from there it becomes a trainwreck during the vacation she decides to take. The whole book encompasses just one weekend.

Blanca is not a likable character, she is selfish and petty, not to mention immature when it comes to facing adult issues. In case anyone forgot – she is a forty-year-old. She is loose with her behavior, which would be fine if it didn’t begin to trickle into her personal life and destroy her friendships. I felt as though the purpose of Blanca was to watch what happened as she derailed numerous times, she drinks, smokes and takes some drugs. She chastises her friend for being straight edge, ruins the relationship and then runs amok sabotaging her casual relationships. Becoming mistress to a married man, running a man she truly cares for out of her life because she’s unwilling to take it to the next step. Everything she does is unlikable, graceless and pointless.

From what is gathered from the book, she wasn’t even close to her mother, at one point it even says how unkind her mother had been to her, as well. The way the book is written kept me detached, not to mention Blanca’s actions certainly kept me from liking her.

The bright side for me, which in the beginning was confusing…was that its written like a letter to her mom. The other positive…it was short. I finished it but by no means enjoyed it.