Ratings94
Average rating4.2
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) 'It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think' Liane Moriarty, No. 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. What readers are saying about This Is How It Always Is: 'This writing is glorious. A fabulous book. Topical, moving, full of magic' 'One of the most amazing and thought-provoking books I have ever read. It's warm, well observed and funny' 'A beautiful love story of two people who meet, fall hopelessly in love and then create a wonderful unique family of five'
Reviews with the most likes.
“maybe she—and you and I—need to learn to live in a world that refuses to accept a person with a beard who goes by ‘she' and wears a skirt and be happy anyway.”“How?”“How what?”“How do we learn to live in that world and be happy anyway?”
About how a family, protecting their trans kid, is owned by their secret. It's about acceptance, but also about the ways society tells us it's wrong for a boy to wear dresses just like it's wrong for a girl to be in sports. It's maddening, frustrating, and sad.
Reading Challenge category: a book with a six word title
I LOVED this book. I don't even know what else to say about it.
We will discuss at book club next week, and I'm so excited to do so. The richness of things to discuss makes this a perfect book club pick. While I loved this book, it broke my heart many times, for many reasons. The author sums up so much in this quote from her end note. “I wish for my child, for all our children, a world where they can be who they are and become their most loved, blessed, appreciated selves”. “I know this book will be controversial, but honestly? I keep forgetting why”. Definitely worth a read.