A review by laneyj6
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
2.0
I fully support the message of this book and what the author is trying to say (let kids choose, let us all just accept everyone for who they want to be, love each other no matter what etc...) great messages and we should have so much more of that going on but....
I had a real problem with the dialogue of 3 year old Claude. I know that the parents state he has advanced vocabulary for his age but I just could not read it without getting frustrated. No child would talk like that.
I also didn’t enjoy the plot line of them just heading off to Thailand for a month or so. It’s not something that’s really going to be relatable to anyone and is the problem oh so easily solved by spending some time in SE Asia? I’d have rather they stayed in Seattle and went through the process of managing and fixing life there, where their life is. It’s going to be a lot more in-line with what the vast majority of us have to do with our own problems.
I really did struggle to finish this and get through the dialogue...once I was through that I then really struggled to get through the Thailand experience. I feel like it is really made out that kathoeys are widely accepted in Thailand and not at all in the US. This simply isn’t the case, kathoeys face a lot of discrimination and prejudice, sexual harassment and violence (often being left with no choice but to work in the sex trade).
So yeh I really didn’t like this story at all but had to finish it for my book club.
Good message, bad plot.
I had a real problem with the dialogue of 3 year old Claude. I know that the parents state he has advanced vocabulary for his age but I just could not read it without getting frustrated. No child would talk like that.
I also didn’t enjoy the plot line of them just heading off to Thailand for a month or so. It’s not something that’s really going to be relatable to anyone and is the problem oh so easily solved by spending some time in SE Asia? I’d have rather they stayed in Seattle and went through the process of managing and fixing life there, where their life is. It’s going to be a lot more in-line with what the vast majority of us have to do with our own problems.
I really did struggle to finish this and get through the dialogue...once I was through that I then really struggled to get through the Thailand experience. I feel like it is really made out that kathoeys are widely accepted in Thailand and not at all in the US. This simply isn’t the case, kathoeys face a lot of discrimination and prejudice, sexual harassment and violence (often being left with no choice but to work in the sex trade).
So yeh I really didn’t like this story at all but had to finish it for my book club.
Good message, bad plot.