This Is How It Always Is

~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~

Synopsis (from Amazon):  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.

One (or more) Sentence Summary:  No matter what I type, it will not do This Is How It Always Is justice.  A story that has needed to be told for some years now. A  heartbreaking story of supporting your child no matter what.  Beautifully told must-read story.  I think this is Reese's best pick so far. 

I really want to read Laurie's Goodbye For Now.  Sounds like a tear-jerker. 

Laurie Frankel is the author of three novels: THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS (Jan. 2017), GOODBYE FOR NOW, and THE ATLAS OF LOVE. She is also the parent of one child, the minder of one border collie, the partner of one husband, the denizen of one city (Seattle), and the reader of tens of thousands of books.

Amazon