Reviews with content warning for Deadnaming - This Is How It Always Is

Reviews tagging 'Deadnaming'

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

17 reviews

lcdavenport's review

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

4.0

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fynn_jls's review against another edition

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hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

wouldn't really recomend it, especially to queer/trans people. I feel like the book was written from a very cis perspective and for a very cis audience

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kylosten's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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tmledvina's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I am struggling with what score to give this book.

On one hand - I found myself totally and completely captivated by the Walsh-Adams family and the writing style. The book itself is fabulous and the prose is excellent.
I fell hard for the boys, the brothers, and their silly boyish antics and how they loved Poppy with every fiber of their beings. They felt so real to me that I, a child free person by choice, actually wondered what it might be like to have a gaggle of boys like that.
The family dynamics also caught my interest, and I really enjoyed the way parenting was shown as a constant, ever-changing battle.

Poppy herself was honestly very sweet. I wanted to wrap her up and give her all the love and snuggles she deserves because God she is such a good kid. She has my whole heart!

I also really liked the narrator, even if her pronunciation of Wisconsin was weird (as a born and bred Wisconsinite, no one ever says it right except us). Her voice was smooth and easy to listen to!

Now here's why I gave this less than four stars.
I hated Rosie. I hated her so much I would legitimately scream at her in my car when she'd say something or think something. I understand why she was the way she was, why she had such a hard time with Poppy/Claude and the transition. I understand her character completely. It doesn't mean I hated her any less.
I liked Penn a bit more, but he also annoyed the shit out of me. Where Rosie went the direction of almost being transphobic in places, Penn went the complete opposite and was way too much in places.

I KNOW they're not supposed to be perfect, and if anything, the fact I hated them in their own ways was probably indicative of how well this was written. But as a member of the queer community myself, I don't find this to be a great roadmap for championing queer issues. It's written mostly from the perspective of cis hetero people, and these issues are incredibly delicate.

This doesn't mean I didn't like it, but I really hope people don't read this book and see it as the epitome of raising a trans kid. Because you can do a LOT better (and frankly, should) than Rosie and Penn did with Poppy.

At the end of the day, I really did like the story and it was nice to read something that wasn't just all good in every way. This book was challenging for me in the best kind of way, and I think because of that it deserves the praise it receives. My feelings for it are complex and that's more than I've felt about a book for a long time.

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rachelkreadsbookz's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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thebelugaloo's review against another edition

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I felt the sensitive subject matter, having a transgender child, was handled very poorly. I understand it's a complex issue and the author may have been trying for complex characters interacting with the subject matter, but up to this page it has only been extremely uneducated opinions and unrealistic/unreasonable reactions. I cannot point to one character I thought was handling the situation appropriately.

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