This Is How It Always Is: A Novel

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.

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336 pages

Average rating: 7.92

569 RATINGS

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Denise Mcstev

Mar 06, 2025

9/10 stars

Interesting story about a family with a secret that affects everyone. Hopeful yet devastating and then hopeful again. I cared a lot about the main characters and wanted everything to turn out well for them.

Anonymous

Aug 21, 2024

10/10 stars

I laughed, cried, and really, really thought. This book brought so many wonderful questions to my mind about the state of life in general. I would recommend it for anyone.

Cvonbgn

May 10, 2024

10/10 stars

A beautiful story.

brittshank91

Mar 25, 2024

10/10 stars

This book clearly (and not so clearly, in its own way) described what it’s like to be “in the middle”. Other. Not quite fitting in box A or B and there’s no other option. It’s a reminder that sometimes, family is all you have, and sometimes, people you think you can trust will betray you. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. You can always adjust, pivot, and continue building your path, whatever that may look like.

Anonymous

Dec 15, 2023

4/10 stars

While this subject was important and interesting, I had so many grievances while reading and would not recommend this book. Her writing style is very aggravating - very long for no compelling reason. Her dialogue for characters is very unrealistic, especially the dialogue written for the young characters. The dialogue is far too sophisticated and convenient. Conversations between Rosie and Penn felt like lectures - I pictured two people in a room discussing very sensitive and emotional topics and just taking turns listening to each other say well thought out and educated points (so unrealistic) - no interruptions or back and forth - just paragraphs and sometimes page after page of dialogue from one character. There was not enough conflict and any pieces of conflict felt contrived in order to flush out certain plot points. I was not a fan of the tool of the fairy-tale of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie - it's unrealistic to think that teenagers would listen to this story night after night, not just because of it's unexciting/random content, but also because teenage boys don't want to sit and listen to a fairy-tale...at all... Details like these take me out of the story and make me very aware of the author's presence. Of course the topic was enlightening to read about and I appreciate what the author was trying to do, but the structure was on a amateur level. I basically skimmed everything in Thailand - most of it is just so unnecessary despite the goal of that entire plot point.