BookView Review

Frankel’s excellent latest is a novel about secrets: the ones we keep to protect the people we love, the ones that weigh us down, and the ones that refuse to stay buried.  At its heart is the Walsh-Adams family: Rosie, a doctor; Penn, a writer; and their five chaotic, lovable boys. Until Claude, the youngest, announces he wants to be a girl.  Rosie and Penn don’t hesitate to support him, but they do hesitate to share that truth with the world. After a cruel incident in their progressive-seeming Wisconsin town, they uproot to Seattle, hoping for a fresh start. The catch? No one there knows Poppy’s past. And secrets like that don’t stay secrets forever. 

Frankel captures the tightrope of parenting: love tangled with fear, best intentions colliding with the unpredictable. The novel is warm, sharp, often funny, and deeply real. “This is what parenting is,” Rosie reflects. “Making decisions you hope won’t ruin everything.” The family’s choices lead to both joy and heartbreak. And when the truth finally comes out, it forces them to confront what it really means to protect someone you love. Yes, the novel is sometimes sentimental, sometimes too neat. But it’s also heartfelt, beautifully written, and necessary. Frankel isn’t just telling a story about a transgender child. She’s telling a story about family—about change, love, and how nothing ever goes exactly as planned. And that, as the novel suggests, is how it always is.

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