TRANS* & Nonbinary

This Is How It Always Is

This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.

This is Claude, five years old, the youngest of five brothers, who loves peanut butter sandwiches. They also love wearing a dress, and dream of being a princess. When they grow up, Claude says, they want 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.

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.

PLease let me know if this book requires a content warning.