This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Laurie Frankel

NARRATOR: Gabra Zackman

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

RATING: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A beautiful contemporary fiction about a little boy who isn’t a boy. Emotional, realistic, thought-provoking. Well-written almost all the way. Highly recommended.

Story Synopsis:

Ever since her younger sister Poppy died of cancer during her childhood, Rosie has wanted a daughter named Poppy. But when she has five boys with her writer husband Penn, she accepts that “Poppy” will just be a dream.

When her youngest, Claude, is five, he says that he wants to be a girl when he grows up. And maybe even before that. Thus begins a long game of what to reveal and what to keep secret., where to encourage Claude and where to dissuade him, how to keep the family united when little things are driving them apart. Giving them all a thread of hope is a fairy tale.

The story comes to us in the limited third person perspectives of Claude, Rosie, and Penn.

Bookish Yays:

😍 The handling of the plot – The author takes a complicated and possibly controversial premise, and pens it in the most beautiful way possible. I loved the intricacies of the writing, with the perfect balance between descriptions, musings, and action.

😍 The core theme of Claude being a transgender child. It is so sensitively handled that I couldn’t help feel awed by the beauty and the pain of the author’s words. It’s easy to wish for a binary world just so that children won’t go through such identity trauma. However, gender is not two-toned but a rainbow, and such books will help readers be more aware and more understanding. (At least, I hope so.)

😍 Claude – What beautiful character development for this little child! Every time he (I use the masculine pronoun deliberately – you will know why if you read the story) faced a new challenge, I felt like giving him a tight hug. Never before have I seen a transgender person’s “identity crisis”, if I can call it that, written so genuinely.

😍 Rosie and Penn – This couple is so in sync with each other and so focussed on their children’s requirements that they give close competition to Isabel and Nate Pullman from R.J. Palacio’s Wonder for being the best fictional parents, ever! I also love how they don’t allow being parents come in their way of being a couple.

😍 Several other impactful characters in the story, with my favourites being Claude’s grandmother Carmelo, his best friend Aggie and the eccentric pseudo-therapist Mr. Tongo. Claude’s four elder brothers also have a prime role in the proceedings, with the twins being the most memorable for me.

😍 The realistic depiction of what it means to be a family, complete with priorities and procrastinations, calm and chaos, fun and fights. Loved it!

😍 The multifarious discussions over gender roles in society, partly through the role reversal of the “provider” in the marriage, via Rosie’s being a doctor and Penn’s being struggling author, and partly through Claude’s discussions about what girls and boys can do.. All offer much fodder for thought.

😍 The emotions – Oh my! I can’t remember the last time I felt so overwhelmed while reading a novel. I love books that make me wonder what I would do if I were in a particular character’s position. In this novel, all three main characters - Rosie, Penn and Claude – made me put myself in their shoes repeatedly. Each of them had so much to deal with that their burdens became mine. As a parent, my heart broke whenever Claude struggled with something new, but it was Rosie, with our common maternal link, with whom I resonated most.

😍 I liked how Penn applied his authorial skills to narrate a customised bedtime story to his boys, and he didn’t stop even after the boys were grown up. His using the fairy tale in a metaphorical way to help his boys sort through their problems was a great glimpse at his parenting style. The fairy tale also adds a touch of magic to the story.

😍 Usually, such books seem to come with an agenda or a message. After all, with such a powerful topic, it is easy to slip into social commentary. However, the best part of this book is that it makes no social declarations at all. It throws plenty our way, but at the end, the decision taken by the couple and their child is theirs alone and not advocated as a blanket solution for all. It highlights how everyone’s needs are distinct and the one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in real life.

😍 The ending: Just enough of hope, just enough of happiness. To me, the best kind of books are ones that end with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. This is easily one of them.

😍 Don’t miss the author’s note! It WILL make you look at the whole story with a fresh perspective.

Bookish Nays:

😣 Without going into spoilers, all I can say is that the part of the story that is set in Thailand is the weakest. To some extent, I can see why it was included, but I wish it had been better handled. It adds nothing great to the book, and deviates from the core plot. Also, it offers a very patronising and stereotypical picture of the beautiful country. As someone who has actually been to Thailand, I wasn’t happy with this lopsided and inaccurate portrayal as it was overly “white-saviour” in approach.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at a little more than 11 hrs, is narrated by Gabra Zackman. She is very good at bringing this audiobook to life, except for one thing: she keeps her volume the same, no matter whether the character is whispering or shrieking or just speaking casually. She does add emotions to her lines, but a little modification upwards or downwards on the decibel level would have helped much, especially during intense scenes such as arguments between two characters.

I am quite bugged that the audio ARC didn’t include the Author’s Note. It was so vital to this story! I’d rather have read the author’s note than the included preview of her upcoming book. Thankfully, I had the digital edition of this book on my Kindle, and hence read the Author’s Note from there.

At its heart, this is just the story of a family that is ready to do anything for one of its members. But the width and depth of the story spans so much more than this simple one-line premise. Though I am not happy with the representation of Thailand, I still feel that this book is a must-read, not just for its authentic portrayal of transgender issues but for its heartfelt depiction of what it truly means to be a family.

Definitely recommended to all readers who seek a beautiful story about a little *boy* and his family, and how they realise that "this is how it always is."

My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “This Is How It Always Is”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.