A review by kithenrietta
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

4.5

“No one will know who you’re supposed to be.”

“No one ever does.”

A family has a secret, but not one they really want to keep. It’s just never the right time or place. They’re not ashamed of their secret, they love their secret unconditionally. But when does a secret turn into a lie?

Penn and Rosie have five children. They’re incredibly accepting and loving parents to all of them, but their youngest is different. Claude isn’t really Claude. Claude wants to be a princess. Well, Claude is a princess. And a night fairy. Claude is actually Poppy. And when you’re five years old, it’s easy to start out fresh somewhere else where no one ever knew that Claude existed so that Poppy can just be Poppy. But what happens when everyone finds out about Claude?

This book follows the family through Poppy’s fifth grade year. During that, there are fairy tales, social challenges, joy, heartache, and acceptance.

I really enjoyed this book. I went into it not knowing anything about it, but I was delightfully surprised by its premise. It shows that no matter how accepting you are of your queer child, you don’t magically understand which step is the right one to take. There is no real right answer. There are only options.

I’m not sure that using Thailand as a vehicle for finally speaking to a trans adult about Rosie’s trans child was the optimal choice. It didn’t seem like a last minute decision by the author though, at least.

I really wanted to jump into the book and give Poppy a hug. I’m really happy with the ending. It felt like the end of a good 90s/00s live action Disney Channel movie.

I would recommend this book to teachers, mentors, and other adults who regularly interact with children who already have some background knowledge about trans individuals. If you read this with little to no background about trans people, some of the terminology could be overwhelming despite how much the author tries to make it simple to understand.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with the audiobook.