This Is How It Always Is: A Novel

I don't want to give any hints as to what this book is about. Don't read about it first, don't read the blurb on the dust jacket. Don't read a recap. Just read it, as I was told to do. You won't regret it.

NY BOOKCLUB 2025

The Book gets too much into the mother's work near the end, which totally eludes the main focus--Poppy.

October 2019 selection

Book club put This Is How It Always Is in my hands. My feelings landed right in the middle. Laurie Frankel writes a tender family story about Rosie and Penn, parents of five children, as their youngest biologically male child begins telling them she wants to live as a girl. The family names her Poppy, surrounds her with love, and tries to protect her from a world that is often cruel to people it refuses to understand. My biggest struggle was the writing. The novel often spells out its message so directly that the story starts to feel instructed rather than discovered. I sometimes felt like I was reading a list of every painful thing a trans child and her parents might experience, instead of watching those moments unfold through natural storytelling. The subject matter is important, but the delivery felt too on the nose at times. Penn’s fairy tale book was one of my favorite threads. It was sweet, whimsical, and full of the warmth I wanted more consistently from the larger story. Its placement occasionally interrupted the flow, but the idea itself was adorable. The Walsh-Adams family is easily lovable. Rosie and Penn are imperfect, loving, and fiercely protective parents who try to build a safer world for their daughter before the world is ready to offer her one. Their children are kind, accepting, and tender with each other. The people who bully, judge, and discriminate against Poppy are awful. The book makes one thing very clear. A lack of understanding never gives anyone permission to be hateful. This Is How It Always Is did not completely work for me as a novel, but I appreciated its compassion, family dynamics, and belief that love should lead people toward action. Pick this up if you enjoy emotional family fiction, parenting stories, and books about identity, secrecy, and acceptance. It is a thoughtful choice for readers who appreciate stories about families choosing love again and again.