Enormous Wings

 

Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel

Fiction

Narrated by Becky Ann Baker

Finished on September 24, 2026

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. Her children and grandchildren worry it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: she’s pregnant.

Once word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and the paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, all descending on Vista View as Pepper tries to determine her next move. Soon Pepper has some hard decisions to make—and some she’s not allowed to make.

Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose. It’s about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks—even so late in the day—can still change, and then change everything.

Enormous Wings is the fourth novel of Laurie Frankel's that I've read. Other than This Is How It Always Is, which was a 5-star read for me, her novels tend to be just okay. They keep me entertained, but they aren't keepers, nor do I feel compelled to recommend them to my book group. Enormous Wings is an unbelievable, yet timely story. One must suspend disbelief that a seventy-seven-year-old can get pregnant, but the challenges she encounters in Texas (Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life) are sadly believable under the current administration. Frankel also touches on themes such as retirement communities, aging, and death. Maybe there are enough topics here to discuss with others.

I believe every woman has the right to choose, but I felt Enormous Wings went on too long, bordering on didactic or preachy. It did have moments of hilarity, as well as a few tender moments between characters, but I didn't love the book. However, the audio, which is narrated by Becky Ann Baker, is well done. I had no trouble distinguishing between characters, male or female, and especially loved Moth's British accent.

Click on links for reviews of previously read novels by Frankel:

This Is How It Always Is (5/5)

One Two Three (3/5)

Family Family (3/5)

Other than This Is How It Always Is, I have absolutely no recollection of the details for these books.  Completely forgettable.

Family Family

 

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

Fiction

2024

Finished on June 14, 2024

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

“Not all stories of adoption are stories of pain and regret. Not even most of them. Why don’t we ever get that movie?”

India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero.

Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do—she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.

Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help–and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…

The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn’t blood. And it isn’t love. No matter how they’re formed, the truth about family is this: it's complicated.

I was so excited when I spotted a copy of Family Family, Laurie Frankel's latest novel on the new release shelf at my library. I had recently compiled my stack of books for the 20 Books of Summer Reading challenge, but decided to put that on pause so I could first read this highly anticipated book. Sadly, it wasn't the hit I had hoped for. 

The story starts off well, and I quickly came to enjoy the snappy dialogue between India and the supporting cast of characters. I was taken aback by the turn of events about halfway into the book, but happy for an unpredictable plot and interesting themes about the structure of families. At that point, though, the book began to bog down, became unrealistic, and what was once entertaining dialogue, became tiresome. (If you've watched The Gilmore Girls, India's conversations and behavior reminded me of Lorelai, who is entertaining, but exhausting.) I was ready to finish the book and move on to my next read.

Family Family is the third book of Frankel's that I've read in the past few years. Prior to this recent release, I read One Two Three, which was also a challenge to finish. The first, and my favorite, is still This Is How It Always Is. I gave that novel a perfect 5-star rating, and it's one that I look forward to reading again. I'm sorry her more recent works haven't lived up to my expectations.

One Two Three

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

Fiction

2021 Henry Holt and Company

Finished on January 14, 2022

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In a town where nothing ever changes, suddenly everything does...

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive. Because it's hard to let go of the past when the past won't let go of you.

Three unforgettable narrators join together here to tell a spellbinding story with wit, wonder, and deep affection. As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loud-on-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone and how when days are darkest, it’s our daughters who will save us all.

It's been over three years since I read Laurie Frankel's marvelous novel This Is How It Always Is. It was one of my favorite books of 2018 and I still think about the characters in that thought-provoking story. I was thrilled to win an ARC of Frankel's most recent release from Shelf Awareness in late 2020, but of course it wound up on my TBR shelf for more than a year. I plan to read all of the books on that shelf in 2022 and One Two Three ended up on my January reading list.

I wish I could say that I loved this book as much as I loved This Is How It Always Is, but it was somewhat disappointing and a little bit of a challenge to finish. The novel alternates between the three sisters' (triplets) narratives, which provides insight to each of their lives and inner thoughts. I liked each of the girls equally and came to care about their challenges in Bourne. Unfortunately, halfway in, the book became a slog and I wanted to be finished and move on to something else. In addition to receiving an ARC from Shelf Awareness, I also received a complimentary edition of the audiobook from Libro.fm. After reading a few reviews from other bloggers, I wish I had listened to the book instead of reading the print edition. The audio includes three narrators, one for each sister, which I can imagine adds to the humor and emotion of the story, especially in the final chapters. Maybe I'll give it a listen in a few months and update this post once I have.

This Is How It Always Is

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Fiction
2017 Flatiron Books
Finished on March 17, 2018
Rating: 5/5 (Excellent!)

Publisher's Blurb:

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.

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.

This was an outstanding novel! Frankel's writing is so engaging, reminding me of that of Anna Quindlen and Marissa de los Santos. I started reading the book late one night and couldn't put it down. This is one you'll want to discuss with others and I plan to recommend it to my book club. Now I'm eager to read more by Frankel and delve into her blog archives. Sadly (maybe she's busy writing another novel?) her blog posts ended a year ago.

Favorite passages: 

Penn knew in his heart that Claude should be who he was. But he also knew that Claude would be happier if neither his clothes nor his sandwich nor the bag it came out of attracted anyone's attention because another thing his heart knew was this: it was more complicated than that. Five years of Orion wearing all manner of weird stuff to school had occasioned not so much as a raised third eyebrow from anyone. "What an imaginative boy Orion is," his teachers said. "His spirit brightens everyone's day." If an eyeball sticker was creative self-expression, surely Claude should wear what he wanted to school. How could you say yes to webbed feet but no to a dress, yes to being who you were but no to dressing like him? How did you teach your small human that it's what's inside that counts when the truth was everyone was pretty preoccupied with what you put on over the outside too?

and

Rosie felt only fear. Rosie felt deafened by the voices howling in her head that she was mad to consent to this, that it was her judgment which was not to be trusted. And underneath that cacophony she could just make out the narrator who pointed quite peaceably to the fork in the road before them. The path on the right was paved and shady, rolling gently along a childhood filled with acceptance to an adulthood marked by requited love, grandchildren, and joy, whereas the other path was rock-strewn and windblown, uphill both directions, and led she had no idea where. Here she was at the crossroads letting her baby boy run blindly down the path on the left (in a skirt and heels) while the narrator looked on reprovingly.

and

"Never," Penn agreed. "Not ever. Not once. You never know. You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what's good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don't get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child's entire future and happiness is at stake. It's impossible. It's heartbreaking. It's maddening. But there's no alternative."

Told with great compassion and sensitivity, This is How It Always Is is one of the best book I read this year. While at times heartbreaking, all in all it's a very powerful and uplifting story. I loved it. 



"This is How It Always Is in an incredible read that speaks to the heart of what it means to love and be loved by family."
―Amazon Best Book of January 2017

"Brave, complicated, occasionally horrifying and frequently very funny…Frankel is a first-rate storyteller."
―The Seattle Times

“Frankel has tackled this controversial topic in a warm, funny and honest way and one that will undoubtedly spark thought and conversation.”
--The Fort Worth Star-Telegram