If I knew graduating from teen fiction meant crying by the end of each chapter, I may have never expanded my bookshelf. But then, I would have never read a story like this one.
This is How it Always Is is beautiful, breathtaking, and heart shattering.
Loosely inspired by her own life, Laurie Franklin defines what it means to be a family. Both through her descriptive language and attention to detail, Franklin paints the most authentic picture that stays with you long after you finish the book.
We meet our first characters, Penn and Rosie, as they fall in love. Penn is a self-proclaimed poet and writer, Rosie an ER doctor. While she works night shifts, he sits in the waiting room, writing. And when they finally get to sleep, Penn tells Rosie a bedtime story. Thus was born the saga of Grumwald, a never ending fairytale that Penn tells Rosie when they dated, and their five children years later. Grumwald’s adventures are narrated throughout the book, a thinly veiled attempt to teach real life lessons to the kids based on their daily struggles.
Their youngest, Claude, goes through more struggles than his brothers. At age three, he announces that he is a girl, renamed as Poppy*. Her parents are incredibly supportive, allowing her to dress up in gowns and identify whichever makes her happy. Her brothers, Grandmother, and school principal are the same. Even her kindergarten classmates are totally unfazed. However, the older kids and parents are a different story, showing us that homophobia and hatred is not innate – it is taught and adopted.
Poppy’s story is of two worlds – one of a wonderful supporting family and another of the outside world with bigots and homophobes. Readers are forced to recognize that remaining silently supportive of members of the LGBTQ+ community behind closed doors is simply the bare minimum. A true ally fights to change society at large.
I loved so many aspects of this book. I loved that Frankel provided this insight into the emotion and the decisions that are behind trans stories. I loved that the characters – especially those in Thailand – emphasized that who you are is rooted in something much deeper than the body you are born in. And finally, I loved the lessons Grumwald, through fairytale, taught us readers in acceptance, overcoming, and staying true to who you are.
* While Poppy ultimately identifies as female, there are stages when she goes by Claude and he/his pronouns instead. I try to stay true to the pronouns used in the chapters of the book I describe.