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This Is How It Always Is

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This Is How It Always Is

By: Laurie Frankel
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
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The Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick.

A New York Times Audio best seller.

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.

©2017 Laurie Frankel (P)2017 Macmillan Audio Family Life Genre Fiction Women's Fiction
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Critics' reviews

"A lively and fascinating story of a thoroughly modern family and the giant, multifaceted love that binds them.... Sparkles with wit and wisdom." (Maria Semple, best-selling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette)

"An intelligent, life-affirming, emotionally charged story." (Prima)

"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)

All stars
Most relevant
Sensitive depiction of how a closely knit family comes to terms with the trials and tribulations when their sibling Poppy struggles in a world where not everyone is tolerant regarding transgender issues. At first hard to get into but do carry on, it is a good read.

Heartrending tale of a Poppy vs Claud

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Ich kenne keine kleinen Kinder in meiner Umgebung mit einer ähnlichen Geschichte. Aber ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass sie häufig sehr viel heftiger verlaufen. Dann mag man es wohl auch nicht so gerne hören. Mit dieser recht harmonischen Geschichte habe ich trotzdem das Gefühl, dem Thema näher gekommen zu sein und es hat meine Sicht durchaus beeinflusst.

sehr genossen!

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Wirklich schönes Buch, das man gelesen haben sollte. Vor allem der erste Teil ist herzerwärmend, weil der kleine Claude so unbedarft hinnimmt, was ihm die Natur zuspielt. Der mittlere Teil wühlt Dich auf, weil Du denkst: Wie hätte ich es als Eltern gemacht? Besser, schlechter, genau so? Der Dritte Teil ist dann irgendwie deprimierend.
Nicht ganz 4 Sterne gabes, weil wohl die wenigsten Transgender eine derart tolle und einfühlsame, offene und sozial so kompetente Familie um sich haben, die bedingungslosen Rückhalt geben. Trotzdem: das Buch hat meinen Horizont in eine Richtung erweitert von der ich gar nicht gewusst hatte, dass diese Richtung gibt....

3,5* ---Horizonterweiternd---

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