‘I’m not usually,’ he replies, thus signalling the beginning of the family’s difficult journey, where clothing choices turn out to be the least of their problems.Īfter protracted discussions with the school, the family decide that Claude should start attending as Poppy. When he refuses to take it off before school one morning, protesting that his girl friends are allowed to wear dresses, Rosie tells him that boys don’t usually wear dresses and tights to school.

Claude especially takes the stories to heart and starts wearing a princess dress around the house. With Rosie often working late, the evening bedtime story becomes the point to which they all gravitate, with the boys entranced by Penn’s nightly (and knightly) tales of the Princess Stephanie and her prince charming. The family is a close-knit gang and, although numerous, none of them fade into the background each has a story to tell and is given the space to tell it. Rosie has always yearned for a daughter, a wish she had finally hoped would come true until Claude, her fifth son, arrives. Written in three parts, the book opens with Rosie and Penn, an ER doctor and aspiring novelist respectively, bringing up four boys in Wisconsin. Laurie Frankel has drawn on her own personal experience, crafting a thoroughly enjoyable and realistic portrait of a modern family, one that constantly subverts and side-swipes your expectations to the point that that you’ll give up halfway trying to second guess where it’s headed next. So goes the blurb for Laurie Frankel’s third novel This is How it Always Is, a humane and beautifully realised book that centres on a family’s struggle to cope with the gender dysphoria of its youngest member. He also loves wearing a dress, growing his hair long, and dreams of becoming a princess.” He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. ‘This Is How It Always Is’ by Laurie Frankel tells the story of a family dealing with the intricacies of having a trans daughter

This is how it always is cover