• Home
  • BOOKS
  • Coming Soon
    • About Roni
    • Press Kit
    • FAQ
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Blog
  • Classes & Coaching
  • Events
  • Contact
Menu

Roni Loren

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

Your Custom Text Here

Roni Loren

  • Home
  • BOOKS
  • Coming Soon
  • About
    • About Roni
    • Press Kit
    • FAQ
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Blog
  • Classes & Coaching
  • Events
  • Contact

Friday Reads: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

February 10, 2017 Roni Loren

It's been a quiet week on the blog because I've been fingers-to-keyboard all week while I FINISHED BY THE HOUR! Woo-hoo! This is the second book in the Pleasure Principle (Off the Clock) series. I hope to reveal the cover to y'all next week and to get it up for pre-order. Release date right now is April 2017 and that should stay on track. So yay! New book!

But today, I have a book to recommend for you if you're looking for something a little different to read. In between writing this week, I read Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is. I'd call this Contemporary Fiction if you're looking to pin down a genre. I found out about this book on the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog and the plot intrigued me. What to know what it's about?

Back cover:

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.

So this book is about a transgendered child and her family, but it's about so much more than that. It's about secrets--when to keep them, when they become damaging, what happens when you get caught up in them. The family in this novel is big and loving and well-intentioned. This isn't about a family not accepting their child. Quite the opposite. But all that acceptance and support and sheltering from the world can also create its own problems. I loved the nuanced way the topic was handled. 

I also just adored the family. The characters were people you feel like you could hang out with. Funny and imperfect and good-hearted. The whole book just had this warm feel to it even though it tackles some serious topics. I devoured it in a few days.

Some of my favorite quotes...

The mother on sending her son to school when he started to transition to wearing girl clothes.

"She wanted to go to school with him. She wanted to don a gang jacket and sit in the back of the classroom with a bat so that everyone understood what would happen to them if they messed with her kid." 

Haven't we all felt that way at some point as parents?

And on what people say when your child is dealing with something. I've had this very thought because my son is on the autism spectrum and I've gotten these kinds of comments. I appreciate kind words but we're not doing some different kind of brand of parenting. We're doing what everyone tries to do: be the best parent to meet the needs of their individual child/children.

"Or they would lay a hand on her arm and say, 'You're so brave,' or 'You're such a good mother. You're doing so well with all this.' Rosie appreciated the support but wasn't sure parenting ever really qualified as brave--or maybe it always did--because it's not like you had a choice."

And on time passing with kids. This one made my heart clench.

"Parent time is magic: downtempo and supersonic all at once, witch's time, sorcerer hours. Suddenly, while you aren't paying attention, everything's changed."

Also, I loved this from the Author's Note at the back of the book. This is how my writing process is as well.

"The novelist in me is inspired by how much raising children is like writing books: You don't know where they're going until you get there. You may think you do, but you're probably wrong. Corralling and forcing them against their will to go where you first imagined they would isn't going to work for anyone involved. Never mind you're the one writing and raising them, they are headed in their own direction, independent of you. And scary though that is, it's also how it should be."

So if you're looking for something that will warm you heart, make you think, and is a page-turner, grab this one.

Buy the book: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

In Book Recommendations, Books, Friday Reads, Reading Tags friday reads, reading, books, contemporary fiction, this is how it always is, laurie frankel, book recommendations, book club picks, transgender, lgbtq
Comment

LATEST RELEASE

The new edition is here! Find out more

Now available! Find out more!

Add to Goodreads


series starters

“Intelligent, sweet, and fun, this romance succeeds on all levels.” —Publishers Weekly STARRED review Find out more

“Intelligent, sweet, and fun, this romance succeeds on all levels.” —Publishers Weekly STARRED review Find out more

An Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, and Amazon Best Romance of the year Find out more

An Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, and Amazon Best Romance of the year Find out more

Winner for Best Erotic Romance of the year! Find out more about the Pleasure Principle series

Winner for Best Erotic Romance of the year! Find out more about the Pleasure Principle series

The first in the long-running Loving on the Edge erotic romance series. Find out more

The first in the long-running Loving on the Edge erotic romance series. Find out more


 Subscribe

My Happy For Now Newsletter

Find me Online


free reading  journal!

A reading journal designed for romance readers!

A reading journal designed for romance readers! Free with newsletter sign-up.


Previous Posts
  • March 2025
  • November 2024
  • June 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • March 2023
  • January 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • July 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • October 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
Return Home

Powered by Squarespace

Site and text © 2008-2025 Roni Loren - Photos are either by the author, purchased from stock sites, or (where attributed) Creative Commons. Linkbacks, pins, and shares are always appreciated, but with the exception of promotional material (book covers, official author photo, book summaries), please do not repost material in full without permission.  And though I do not accept sponsored content for this site (all my recommendations are personal recommendations), there are some affiliate links. All Amazon and iBooks links are affiliate links.