Publish Date: 01/23/18
Author: Laurie Frankel
Started: 1/1/19
Finished: 1/6/19
Pages: 336
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Goodreads Summary:
This 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 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.
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.
My Review:
I liked and disliked this story. I loved the issues that the story brought up. I thought it was wonderful to read about contemporary issues. I just had some issues with how the novel played out. The book’s topics do indeed help start uncomfortable conversations. It is thought-provoking and a good start. However I was wanting more from this.
First, this story was not only about our transgender character Claude/Poppy, but the entire family. Although transgender issues and transitioning don’t just affect one person, I felt like it focused less on the transgender character than it should have. I appreciated the different views and family dynamics but wanted more about Claude/Poppy. Her experiences as such a young child could have been better portrayed to help readers understand the conflicting feelings even a child may go through.
My second issue was that I felt like so much more could have been done with Claude/Poppy. The story does show the struggle that ensures but I feel like so much opportunity was missed in that transgender children often have more issues with their lives than what Claude/Poppy experienced. I would have appreciated a little more realism. Although I am happy that the story was more positive, I felt like it was more unrealistic than anything. So much of the story seemed “too good to be true” or fairytale-like which after reading this, you’ll understand why. The section on Thailand was a little weird for me. I understand the importance of this trip in both Rosie and Claude/Poppy’s life but realistically, how many families have not only the money but the opportunity to travel for an extended amount of time? Rosie’s career was able to bring this opportunity but what would happen to the family and Claude/Poppy without this opportunity that the majority of transgender children are not fortunate enough to have?
My last issue was the writing style as a whole. I felt like this book had so much page filler that I felt compelled to skip paragraphs. Some details were unnecessary and annoying for me to read through. The book was prolonged in areas that didn’t hold my attention and lacked detail or warranted conflict when there should have been more.
I have to say that the story is definitely important and as mentioned a thought-provoking read for a topic very stigmatized but I’m not sure this this is the exact story needed to get people talking more. Still a good read.
Read, Teach, Eat, Repeat 