“It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think.” -Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Little LiesThis is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.This is how children change…and then change the world.This is Claude. He’s five years old, the … children change…and then change the world.
This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.
When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.
Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
Laurie Frankel’s This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.
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Thought-provoking
The story of a family just as quirky as yours, trying to do the right thing. I enjoyed this read.
Very topical, and also a good account of the current gender understanding needed in today’s world. Although the book is fiction, it’s filled with insight and the questions we all have.
I enjoyed it immensely. Very unusual story and yet believable.
This book was well-written, and thought provoking.
Well written. Highly recommended!
An interesting story about a young trans girl and her family, who tries to protect her.
I couldn’t put this book down. I started reading it on-line and then downloaded the Kindle version. I have several other books I’m reading but I put them all aside. Eye-opening, informative, well written, surprising at times. I highly recommend it!
I liked this book and it is on a very important topic; transgender people.
A must read for sure!!!
Life is difficult, but imagine being born one gender and identifying with the other. It happens daily throughout the world. This is a love story about a family doing everything in their power to help their child live a full life while attempting to shelter and protect their child from the cruelty (or perceived cruelty) of others. What an extraordinary book!
Just delightful. Funny, moving and extremely thought-provoking as we follow not only Claude (when he grows up, wants to be a princess) but the implications of his identity for the rest of his family too. Warmly recommended.
I couldn’t put this book down!
I have a confession to make. I finished this book within hours of having to leave for book club. Not because I didn’t like the story…I actually LOVED the story. As usual, I had a hard time finding time to read a hardcover book as opposed to my usual digital books. I find it harder and harder as my reading vision gets worse and worse. Just know, I always wanted to be reading this book from the first chapter I read. I just didn’t always have the opportunity, my reading glasses on hand, the proper lighting, or a way to read it while in bed with my husband snoozing next to me. But I digress…
While I’ll admit this author’s writing style might not be for everyone, she tends to favor long and flowing sentences, it really spoke to me. It seemed somewhat poetic and almost like a soothing lullaby. In fact, it almost seemed like a fairy tale. Which I believe could very well have been on purpose. After all, the father in this story is a master at weaving such tales. The family as a whole seems to have a fairy tale life in many ways…as is brought up numerous times in this story. In my mind, that was the point. None of us come from perfect families. Don’t ever try to convince me otherwise. There are always secrets, always resentments, always something whether it’s talked about or not. For a kid like Poppy, there could be no better family to be born into. Almost too good, which happens to be its own issue once things start falling apart. As Mr. Tongo, wonderfully eccentric minor character, said more than once, Rosie and Penn were maybe TOO good at protecting and accepting Poppy. She no longer knew how to deal with life’s low blows and disappointments because she never really had to.
I had a lot of split feelings on Rosie. She seemed to be the real dark spot in this fairy tale at times. Rosie is a doctor, a wonderful mother (usually), a compassionate person. But Rosie also (maybe due to her scientific mind???) always wants a cut and dry answer. A clear path from the problem to the solution. And maybe, possibly, she echoed my own need for the right thing to do and say a bit too much for comfort. Penn, on the other hand, I loved. If Rosie was compassionate, I don’t even know the proper word to use for Penn. He’s so accepting, always trying to steer all their kids in the right direction without being overbearing. There is a scene that involves clothes in the dryer that would have made me love Penn if I hadn’t already been in love with him from the beginning.
I’m trying to say Rosie and Penn are not perfect. Often, I wondered what certain decisions were doing to the rest of their kids. I felt maybe they didn’t discuss things enough with the older boys and didn’t listen to what was being said to them in any real fashion. Sometimes that would play out in the narrative, sometimes it wouldn’t. So no, no family is perfect. What’s great about Rosie and Penn is that we often get to see two sides of an argument. Two different ways of viewing the same thing. Two opinions of what is best and what should be done.
Let’s be clear here, this is a work of fiction. FICTION! I am judging it as such. No, most people can’t just up and move if things aren’t going their way. No, most do not have such wonderfully open-minded grandmas. No, most families have more fighting and less camaraderie as their kids grow up. Again…fiction. Which means I will rate it as such.
This review, and thoughts on the book from my book club, can be found at https://allingoodtimeblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/22/this-is-how-it-always-is-book-club/
This story is about a family with five children. After having 4 children – all boys – Penn and Rosie decide they want one more. Secretly hoping for a girl, Rosie tries a lot of superstitious things to make it so. In the end, Claude – their 5th boy – is born.
As Claude grows, it becomes clear that he isn’t comfortable in his body. He frequently asks to wear dresses, and play with dolls, and be a princess. At first the family believes that he is just exploring because he has 4 brothers who like nothing but trucks and tumbling. But when he parents ask Claude what he wants to be when he grows up – he tells them he wants to be a girl.
By the time Claude is ready for Kindergarten, he has changed his name to Poppy and goes to school every day as a girl. Then one fated playdate causes the whole family to decide they are in the wrong place to raise a little girl who used to be a boy. They pick up their family and move to Seattle to start over where no one knows that Poppy used to be Claude.
Years pass until one day the family secret is revealed, and the whole family is upended. Now they need to decide if keeping Poppy’s secret was the best decision they made for her.
This was a good book. I thought it was well written and a fast read. The author’s small little quips throughout the dialog made a heavy subject a little lighter. The story is full of valuable lessons, and ways that a family deals with a very tough situation. Transgender children still struggle in school and in life. It talks of loving our children no matter what and how we as parents need to love and support our children through all their difficult choices.
The story is wonderful, inspirational and very thought provoking. Even though the subject matter can be controversial, there is sense of humor in every character.
The author portrayed the struggles a family faces with transgender identity.
WONDERFUL book oh my!! the characters were exquisitely created by Laurie and the journey was amazing!! LOVE LOVE LOVED this one!! REALLY needs to be a film~Reese are you seeing this?!
I loved it! It made me look at this subject in a whole new way.
How do you know if your child is transgender? How do you protect him/her and navigate a society that is ignorant? What about the effects on your marriage and the child’s siblings? A thoughtful story on one family’s experience.