fiction
Penn and Rosie have five sons after trying so hard for a
girl. Then their youngest, Claude, really wants to wear dresses to kindergarten.
This heartwarming story made me laugh and smile SO
much! I literally would have categorized
the first part of this novel as a comedy. So, so funny with adorable, witty
characters. Laurie Frankel wrote about such an emotional and controversial
topic with humor and compassion. I loved the people in this book and all of
their dilemmas—both commonplace and extraordinary.
I had previously questioned how small children are
able/equipped to decide that they are not oriented as their birth gender. This Is How It Always Is has opened
my eyes to how this might happen.
Claude’s consistency and insistence about his feelings and interests
made me see how his parents would come to the difficult decision to allow him
to be himself or, rather, herself. It was heartbreaking to watch the family
deal with the initial hurdles only to discover there are more difficult hurdles
ahead. But everything felt mostly genuine and believable. I thought the side
trip to Thailand was a bit extreme (and went on for a bit too long) but, then
again, no one can predict how families will handle extremely stressful
situations.
The narrator was magnificent. Gabra Zackman is one of those
rare narrators who has a massive voice repertoire—male, female, young, old, and
accented. Additionally, she was even
able to present different children’s voices. Amazing! I do have a complaint about her mispronunciation
of two words (each mispronounced twice) which definitely would have lowered any
other narrator’s score, but her repertoire and voice acting blew me away so
much I’m not going to dock her any points for this criticism. A+! My favorite
narration of the year so far!
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