Laurie Frankel's novel follows the Walsh-Adams family as their youngest child, Claude, comes out as transgender -- a subject Frankel has personal experience with as the parent of a transgender daughter, which shows in the specificity of the family's fumbling, loving response. Kirkus Reviews gave the book a notably honest assessment: genuinely moving, but 'cloying at times.' This review covers what the novel actually does well, the real 4.28-star Goodreads reception, and where that sourced Kirkus criticism has merit.
What the Book Actually Is
The Walsh-Adams family -- five kids, two parents -- relocates from Wisconsin to Seattle after their youngest child, born Claude, begins living as Poppy. The novel follows the family's real, unglamorous navigation of that transition: what to tell people, when, how much privacy to protect, and how the other siblings process having a family secret that isn't really a secret so much as a private, evolving truth.
About Laurie Frankel and Why She Wrote This
Laurie Frankel is a Seattle-based novelist who came to fiction after graduate coursework in English literature at the University of Delaware, where she studied Shakespeare through the school's partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Library, and years spent teaching college courses in creative writing, Shakespeare, playwriting, and gender studies. She left academia to write full time after her 2009 debut, and This Is How It Always Is, published in 2017, was her third novel. Its origin is personal and something Frankel has spoken about directly: she and her husband are parents to a transgender daughter, whose gender identity became clear when she was young and began saying she wanted to live as a girl. Frankel has been careful to separate the two, though -- the novel itself is fiction, not memoir, and she's said plainly that her own family's day-to-day life is comparatively ordinary, which is exactly what you want in a family and not necessarily what makes a compelling novel. What carried over from real life wasn't incident but the felt experience of parenting a child through that kind of uncertainty: the everyday questions of what to tell people, when, and how much privacy a child is entitled to before they're old enough to decide that for themselves.
What Critics Actually Said
Kirkus Reviews called the novel "well-plotted, well-researched, and unflaggingly interesting," while being honest that it is "cloying at times" with occasional "arch formulations and preachy pronouncements" -- but concluded it's "worth putting up with the occasional too-much-ism for all the rest of what bright, brave author Frankel has to offer." That's about as candid and specific as professional book criticism gets: real, named flaws, alongside a clear recommendation anyway. The novel also won the 2018 Washington State Book Award and was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, People Magazine, and several other outlets.
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
Beyond the Kirkus assessment, reader reviews echo a similar note: the book is "sometimes sentimental and sometimes too neat," wrapping difficult, ongoing real-world struggles into resolutions that read a bit smoother than the actual challenges families in this situation typically face. This is a consistent enough thread across independent reviews that it's worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as one critic's taste.
The Fairy Tale of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie
Running alongside the main story is a fairy tale that Poppy's father, Penn, invents and tells the children at bedtime -- the story of a prince named Grumwald who must decide whether to become a princess to break a witch's curse. It isn't decoration. Frankel uses it as the novel's other language for what Poppy is going through, letting Penn, and the reader, approach a difficult, specific real-world subject through a form the children already trust before they have the vocabulary to talk about it directly. Penn eventually sells the fairy tale for publication instead of the literary novel he'd spent years writing, and by the time the family reaches Thailand later in the book, Poppy is using pieces of that same story to teach English to local children -- the invented tale folding back into the plot rather than sitting outside it as a separate thread.
On Thailand, Distance, and Coming Home as Herself
The back half of the novel relocates part of the family to a rural village in Thailand, where Poppy's mother, a physician, sets up a refugee clinic. It's a deliberate structural choice: away from the pressure and gossip of their Wisconsin and Seattle communities, Poppy gets room to simply exist, trading fairy tales with local children in a setting where gender nonconformity carries different social meaning than it does back home. That distance is what eventually lets Poppy return able to live more openly as herself, and it's the section reading guides consistently point to as the novel's real turning point rather than a detour from the main story.
On Secrets, Privacy, and What Families Are Owed
A recurring tension in the book is the difference between a secret and a private matter, and how much say a child should have in drawing that line. The Walsh-Adams parents debate, argue over, and repeatedly revise who gets told that Poppy is transgender -- extended family, Poppy's new school, the parents of her friends. Frankel doesn't resolve this into one correct answer. Instead the novel tracks how the family's choices shift as Poppy gets older and more capable of deciding for herself what she wants shared, treating that moving boundary as the point rather than a problem the story needs to solve by the final chapter.
Key Takeaways
- Frankel wrote the novel as fiction inspired by, not a record of, parenting her own transgender daughter -- the Walsh-Adams family's specific plot and its five sons are invented
- The fairy tale of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie works as a second language for the book's central subject, not just a bedtime-story subplot bolted onto the main story
- The family's time in Thailand functions as the novel's structural turning point, giving Poppy distance and a different cultural context in which to decide how openly to live
- The book treats the line between a secret and a private matter as something that shifts as Poppy grows older, rather than a boundary the family sets once and keeps
- Kirkus's 'cloying' criticism and reader complaints about overly tidy resolutions are worth weighing against the real specificity Frankel brings from lived experience as a parent
Who This Book Is Actually For
Parents and family members trying to understand what supporting a transgender child actually looks like day to day, told through fiction rather than a clinical guide. It's also genuinely well-suited to book clubs given how directly it engages a subject many families are navigating in real time.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you want a story that resists tidy emotional resolution and leans harder into ongoing difficulty without narrative comfort, the sentimentality some reviewers flag may feel like too much of a cushion.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Strong 4.28 out of 5 rating across more than 216,000 Goodreads ratings
- Won the 2018 Washington State Book Award and multiple Best of the Year lists
- Written with real specificity from an author with personal experience parenting a transgender child
- Honest, well-sourced Kirkus review that's specific about both strengths and flaws
- Warm without being preachy for most of its length, per multiple reviewers
Cons:
- Kirkus specifically flagged 'cloying' moments with 'arch formulations and preachy pronouncements'
- Reader reviews echo that it's 'sometimes sentimental and sometimes too neat' in its resolutions
- Real-world struggles are occasionally smoothed over more than families in similar situations typically experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this based on the author's real family?
Frankel has a transgender daughter, and that lived experience clearly informs the book's specificity, though the novel itself is fiction rather than memoir.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.28 out of 5 from roughly 216,000 ratings as of this writing.
What did Kirkus actually say?
That the novel is 'well-plotted, well-researched, and unflaggingly interesting' but 'cloying at times,' concluding it's 'worth putting up with the occasional too-much-ism' for what Frankel otherwise offers.
What awards has it won?
The 2018 Washington State Book Award, plus Best Book of the Year recognition from Amazon, People Magazine, The Stranger, Bustle, and The Globe and Mail.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads -- This Is How It Always Is (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- Kirkus Reviews
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
This Is How It Always Is earns its warm reception honestly -- Kirkus's own review names real flaws (cloying moments, occasional preachiness) right alongside real praise, which is a more useful endorsement than blanket positivity. The 4.28 rating across a large review pool and the Washington State Book Award back up that the novel's strengths outweigh its sentimentality for most readers. A genuinely useful, moving read for families navigating similar territory, with the caveat that it smooths some edges reader reviews say real life doesn't.
Buy Day rating: 8.5/10