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Summary
Summary
New York Times Bestseller
The Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick
"Every once in a while, I read a book that opens my eyes in a way I never expected." --Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine book pick)
People Magazine 's Top 10 Books of 2017
Bustle's 17 Books Every Woman Should Read From 2017
PopSugar's Our Favorite Books of the Year (So Far)
Refinery29's Best Books of the Year So Far
BookBrowse's The 20 Best Books of 2017
Pacific Northwest Book Awards Finalist
The Globe and Mail 's Top 100 Books of 2017
Longlisted for 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award
"It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think." --Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Little Lies
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.
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.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
When Claude, who has always resisted stereotypical male behaviors, wants to wear dresses to kindergarten, Rosie and Penn help their young child deal with classmates, parents, teachers, and administrators who don't understand why Claude, who now identifies as female, wants to be called Poppy. After an incident with another parent almost turns violent, the family of seven pick up and move from Madison, WI, to Seattle. Poppy's history remains a secret-until she's in fifth grade. Penn, an aspiring writer and stay-at-home dad, also experiences a journey of self-discovery as he develops his talent for storytelling. Though the third-person perspective revolves mostly around the parents, it will still resonate with teens. Many readers will identify with Poppy, while others will gain fresh perspective on gender identity. -VERDICT This thought-provoking, accessible work would make an excellent parent/teen book club choice.-Carrie Shaurette, Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, NJ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Frankel's third novel is about the large, rambunctious Walsh-Adams family. While Penn writes his "DN" (damn novel) and spins fractured fairy tales from the family's ramshackle farmhouse in Madison, Wis., Rosie works as an emergency physician. Four sons have made the happily married couple exhausted and wanting a daughter; alas, their fifth is another boy. Extraordinarily verbal little Claude is quirky and clever, traits that run in the family, and at age three says, "I want to be a girl." Claude is the focus, but Frankel captures the older brothers' boyish grossness. She also fleshes out his two eldest brothers, who worry about Claude's safety when Rosie and Penn agree that Claude can be Poppy at school. But coming out further isolates this unique child. Encouragement from a therapist and an accepting grandma can go just so far; Poppy only blossoms after the Walsh-Adamses move to progressive Seattle and keep her trans status private, although what is good for Poppy is increasingly difficult on her brothers. The story takes a darker turn when she is outed; Rosie and her youngest must find their footing while Penn stays at home with the other kids. Frankel's (The Atlas of Love) slightly askew voice, exemplified by Rosie and Penn's nontraditional gender roles, keeps the narrative sharp and surprising. This is a wonderfully contradictory story-heartwarming and generous, yet written with a wry sensibility. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Rosie and Penn Walsh-Adams and their five sons live in a sprawling farmhouse full of chaos, love, and fairy tales. One summer, youngest son Claude begins to wear dresses and bikinis around the house. Rosie and Penn encourage Claude to be himself, and he decides he would be more comfortable as Poppy. While Poppy's brothers and parents accept her, they also all worry about the world she faces. The family deals with fallout from friends and teachers who struggle to understand a nonbinary child. Though their city is generally accepting, Rosie wants to move the family to somewhere they can all feel safe. The family moves to Seattle and soon confronts new challenges. They acknowledge that Poppy is their daughter's true identity, so is there any need to tell her new friends that she used to be Claude? The novel follows family members individually as they struggle with their own secrets and histories. Inspired by her own daughter's transition, Frankel tells Poppy's story with compassion and humor.--Chanoux, Laura Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Frankel's third novel is her most personal: as the mother of a transgender daughter, she writes what she knows with clarity, truth, and heart. Rosie and Penn already have four sons when Claude arrives. A remarkable child by all accounts, by age three, Claude announces he wants to be a girl when he grows up. Cautious at first, the family creates a loving, nurturing world as Claude becomes Poppy. After Rosie treats a horrifically battered young trans woman in the ER one night, her fear for Poppy's future results in uprooting the family from Wisconsin to liberal Seattle. But even in the most accepting environments, living with secrets has challenges and consequences impossible to ignore. Narrator Gabra Zackman superbly endows each family member with distinctive personalities, but her characterization of Poppy-her curiosity, joy, devastation, resolve-is especially affecting. Zackman is also memorable as Poppy's unwaveringly supportive, no-nonsense grandmother and as "therapist-magician" Mr. Tonga, who proves to be the family's best cheerleader and realist both. VERDICT With transgender rights making regular headlines, all libraries would do well to enable Frankel's latest to show listeners how it always is-and should be-in families and communities everywhere. ["A touching and sympathetic account that is brimming with life and hard to put down": LJ 1/17 review of the Flatiron: Macmillan hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian -BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.