Passionate, tender, and funny, This Is How It Always Is is a roller-coaster read that carries you along at a a terrific pace. Maybe sometimes you'd like a little bit of a breather to gather your thoughts, but at the same time I couldn't wait to see how it worked out for the family, and especially for young Poppy/Claude. Laurie Frankel has given us a whole family of three-dimensional (if occasionally a bit too precocious) kids and two parents who are, like most of the rest of us, just trying to do their best as best they can figure it out. You're rooting for them all all the way through, but especially for Poppy.
I thought I knew a bit about trans kids and gender dysphoria, but this book gave me a deeper insight into the reality of it; how the experience is different for every child and every family. Whatever perspective you come from, it's never simple, certainly not in a society like the one we live in (and the contrast drawn here with Thailand is fascinating).
It would be nice to say there's a happy ending, but real life isn't noted for serving up happy endings for anyone. What we get instead is a hopeful ending, and maybe that's better.