This debut novel about trans women navigating their identity, relationships and society in South Dakota in 2016 is sorely needed; it is timely, topical, insighful, heartfelt, funny and full of empathy.

It is a very good book, if not a perfect one. I had some issues with the pacing, some of the relationships and a late-in-the-game reveal, but that doesn’t take away from the impact this novel had on me. I will be thinking about it for a long time.

I highly recommend reading it. I only wish the people who would most benefit from reading it actually would, but I fear it might not happen.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc.

This story of an unlikely friendship, developing ina school, was a very interesting read, especially as someone who works in a school with teenagers. As the two women’s relationship comes under the increasing scrutiny of their community, many questions arise for those closest to them. I will be keeping an eye out for St. James’ next novel for sure.

I found this book both thoughtful and enjoyable, as an account of both the temptations and the trials involved in going stealth (or woodworking, as the book refers to it). I enjoyed the premise of this novel; the bond between a trans teacher and student is not something I've ever read before, and I was happy to read about it here. This is very much a novel about trans women, and it does a wonderful job evoking the challenges of that. I did find it slightly odd that there wasn't a single trans masc character (even as a cameo or side character). With that said, I understand that the book being set in a rural area (something I really, really liked about it--there need to be more books about queer communities in rural areas) influenced that. While I wish there had been at least one trans guy, that's not a factor in my rating of the book.
Of the characters, Abigail's voice in particular was strongly rendered within this book; she came across as sarcastic, sharp-eyed, and with a good heart overall. I enjoyed the experience of Brooke, and found the late-in-novel revelation about her identity surprising, yet interesting. I had more mixed feelings about Erica's story. I don't know if I ever totally liked the idea of her friendship with Abigail; I think the book managed to make this more endearing than imbalanced, and did do a good job of addressing the issues with the relationship, however. I also found the pacing of this book somewhat sluggish, and struggled to get invested in some of the side characters. With all that said, I do think the novel is important, particularly right now, and that people should read it. It was especially nice to read a novel about trans life which involved characters in rural communities.

A closeted trans woman teacher, isolated after her divorce, finds herself coming out to the only other trans person she knows, a student in her school, who came out to the entire town through a newspaper ad. While Erica, the teacher, slowly moves towards new relationships as her true self, Abigail, the teen, wants nothing more than to finish school, manage not to be dragged back into her abusive parents’ home and finally go to college and disappear into the woodwork (aka go stealth). Despite their differences and especially their age difference, Abigail and Erica form a connection through their shared identity.
The story is told in multiple POVs and I especially adored Abigail’s POV, her sarcastic teen behavior was written incredibly well (sarcastic, angry and yet caring, often making me laugh out loud) and yet so clearly hiding the massive isolation she faces, rejected by her parents and forced to live with her sister, feeling guilty for causing her pain and also feeling devasted that nobody seems to understand her own struggles. It was really fascinating to read about her development, because she starts the story as someone desperate to grow up and leave everybody who knows her past behind, which is a major reason she is so lonely. Erica’s POV was also really intriguing, her fears and self-absorption often feeling so much more immature than Abigail’s, and yet I found her actions coherent. She is a baby trans after all, caught between excitement and terror. Seeing her develop (and fuck up along the way) was incredibly heartbreaking and yet, kinda beautiful as well. She is so desperate to show the world who she really is and yet, understandably, terrified of what will happen to her if she does. There is also a secret third POV, which I won’t spoil here, but suffice to say I cried my way through that one.
The narrative is incredibly skilled at portraying the small and big joys and fears of being trans and I found myself moving from feeling so joyously happy for the characters to deeply terrified for them to wanting to shake them and tell them there’s another way and to stop being so stupid (“Erica, wait, you stupid bi-“ comes to mind for me, because I was screaming that along with Abigail). I was laughing, crying, sometimes screaming at the pages, but I enjoyed every minute of this book. You can’t help but feel for the characters, their good, bad and ugly sides, their fears and dreams and hopes are so vivid, after reading this book I felt like they were real people I had gotten to know in my actual life.
What I most enjoyed was that so many different trans women’s voices were present here. There’s women who came out young, transitioned and went stealth, older trans women who are only just starting their journey, trans women, who are out, but wish they were stealth to escape discrimination and trans women, who are stealth, but suffer from the isolation as well. There is friendship and romance, open and hidden transphobia, but also support and love and care, allies fucking up, trans people fucking up, but also trans love and joy.
I also really enjoyed the way the book made use of dead names, blurring it out behind grey boxes, comparing it to static and leaving it unsaid, except for one scene that broke my heart. It really underlined the horrible pain that caused.
Finally, I enjoyed that this book took on an often overlooked (if not outright portrayed as inherently bad) aspect of queer experience, relationships (not sexual or romantic!) between people of different ages, in this case an adult teacher and a teenage student, which in real life for obvious reasons would (& should tbh) raise an eyebrow when viewed from the outside. And yet, for our two main characters, their connection is an important aspect of their lives and one that I found incredibly interestingly portrayed. It is not endorsed as good and right imo (and I struggle with some of the reviews claiming that as a reason they rate this book lower? It is spoiled in the book’s description?), but instead showcases to me how trans people are harmed by societal transphobia and isolation, forcing us to find connection with people who we wouldn’t find connection with otherwise and engage in relationships with pretty big power imbalances and the potential dangers that could come from that.
All in all, this book reminded me that joy has to be fought for, that the pain and struggles are worth it and that there is connection and love out there regardless of how bleak it looks.

TW: accusation of grooming and csa, deadnaming, domestic abuse, eating disorder, misgendering, q-word (reclaimed), transmisogyny, transphobia, t-slur (reclaimed), suicide (mentioned), swearing (a lot of it)

Sometimes you stumble on a book on NetGalley that you suspect you would have never heard of otherwise - at least not for some time - and you discover a text that will stay with you for a very, very, very long time. Woodworking is precisely one of these books. To be honest, for the first half of the book, it was Abigail who made it so vibrant and dynamic. She is the voice of a generation and hilarious and richly-layered, but then the second half of the book took a twist that just made me sit up to read every single page. But I won't say anymore because... spoilers.

I've made a conscious effort to read more books by trans authors about trans characters and this is one of the very few I've read that follows a trans character through their transition from the earliest moments. I really felt Erica's internal struggles and the fear and dread were palpable, which wasn't always a comfortable reading experience, as it shouldn't be.

It broke my heart a little that the book is set just before the Cheeto is voted into power for the first time and so it made it incredibly hard to realise how little distance we've covered since then, but actually, the fact that this book exists and will hopefully land on many peoples' radars is a sign that we have come further than I realise, and indeed we continue to move.

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy. I loved it.

I absolutely adored this book. I could not believe it was a debut novel! Incredible writing, developed and complex characters that you couldn’t help but root for, and a unique plot all the way through. A gorgeous story of transition, the road to self-acceptance, and solidarity in women’s friendships. I cannot recommend this book enough and look forward to more from this author!!

I struggled to really fall in love with the characters in Woodworking, but their stories provided a valuable inside look into transitioning and the trans struggles. It was a very worthwhile read - especially now at a time where the trans community is being stripped of so many of their rights and access to meds etc.

This was a deeply moving and personally relevant story. I enjoyed reading the multiple perspectives and the voices in each character differed so well that I was never unsure who was narrating each chapter. I really recommend this title!

This is a lovely and tender novel about Erica and Abigail--one a teacher and the other her student--who are both trans. They become unlikely friends after a series of events but both are misunderstood by both family and those who pretend to care. It's such a touching book that had me in tears often as I realize what a difficult life it is to be shunned, but also how rewarding it is to find people who really care about the person you are inside and can look beyond the exterior to see the beauty within the soul!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

"Woodworking" refers to disappearing from everything you know and vanishing into the woodwork in another place where you can actually be who you are. Abigail is not doing that. She just transferred to Mitchell High School in Mitchell, South Dakota where everyone knows she is trans. The easiest reaction is meanness, but there are other students who want to know her but aren't sure how to ask. Her teacher,Mr. Skyberg, likes her spunk but also has a lot of questions after realizing that Erica is who he really is. Erica has so many questions and turns to her student for answers. Abigail is suddenly mentoring her teacher, trying to survive high school, living with her supportive sister and trying to stay away from the parents she deeply misses who may want to send her to conversion therapy.

Erica's POV is entirely as Erica, but everyone around her, except for Abigail, responds to her as Mr. Skyberg. She's still deeply in love with her ex-wife and Mitchell is certainly nowhere to come out, especially as a high school teacher. She's walking on eggshells as are, it turns out, a lot of other people in town for various reasons.

This is a novel not just about self-discovery but about community, art, and fighting the uphill battle. The characters are appealing, especially when a few layers are peeled off by life or by others. There's already a lot of buzz about "Woodworking," and I recommend embracing it as the story of a small town where people find that they can peek inside themselves and their world, and see things differently maybe, sort of like the production of Our Town they're working on.

Thanks to Netgalley for a digital review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

“Woodworking” is an intense and very thought-provoking story. The author presents the reader with transgender characters who are at very different stages of the acceptance process and “living an authentic life” process in Abigail, Erica, and another character whose trans identity may come as a major surprise. They live in small town South Dakota where the most influential individual is a local pastor and politician who is openly hostile to the transgender community and would like nothing more than to erase transgender people from existence (much like certain real-life politicians). The story addresses many of the fears that transgender individuals have about “outing” themselves or being “outed” by others, including the potential loss of employment, family and friends. The story also addresses the prejudice and persecution experienced by openly transgender individuals.

A central aspect of the story is the importance of finding others who understand and accept you, especially other transgender individuals. However, there is also the danger of becoming too reliant on fellow transgender individuals, which is explored through the friendship between Abigail, openly transgender high school student, and Erica/Mr. Skyberg, English teacher who is just starting to accept that she is transgender but doesn’t know how to handle it and all the complications it will cause.

Some of the most profound content in the book is in the author's afterword, which I will quote in part: "At base level, what is so radically threatening about trans identities to those who would oppress just about anyone is that our very existence argues that no one's body is an obligation they are duty bound to suffer but, instead, a gift they can reinvent and remake as they see fit."

I can't really put into words how much I loved this book: the characters, setting and dialogue are just so well-rounded and naturalistic that it felt like listening to a few trusted friends chat about their lives.
At times heartwarming, tragic and life-affirming, it manages to be political and acerbic; painting human and universal themes with broad strokes, then at turns homely and ordinary; delving into the minutae of relationships and humdrum lives lived in small ways and gestures - this kind of writing is a rare gift indeed, and I will dive on anything published by this author in the future.

Read this because the title intrigues you, read this because you've not picked up a book in years, just make sure you read this. This is an important novel that all should read, not just those that are part of the lgbtqia+ community.

I love reading books about trans experiences and this was a particularly good one about two trans women in a conservative small town. The first is Abigail, a nearly 18-year old high school student in this small town who has a big heart and a big mouth and refuses to let herself be diminished by bigots around her. The other is Erica, her teacher who is recently divorced from her life and cannot stand being called by her old name anymore and just blurs it out mentally whenever everyone in her life does. She's spent her nearly forty years on earth trying to blend in as a boy and man and even lost her wife to the growing distance between them. When she hears about the school's only and loudest trans student getting detention, she swaps shifts with another teacher and thus behins their friendship as the only two trans women in town, one severely closeted and the other trying to get out of this town and do "woodworking" i.e. get lost and blend into the woodwork as just another girl without the stares and labels following her around.

This is a story of two flawed women fighting to be seen as themselves, whether it's Abigail struggling to not be used as someone's "trans friend" or a sexual experiment, but as herself and be left alone by her horrible parents who keep threatening to take her back home and make her live life as their "little boy" or Erica who takes the tiniest of baby steps by wearing pink nail polish to her teaching job and braces herself for people noticing and giving her a hard time as someone who appears male and wears girly nailpolish in a conversative town.

There are so many interesting struggles depicted here that it really helps someone see the variety of struggles a person would face as a trans woman, with or without social or other transition already done and a few surprises worked in as well.

All in all, I loved this story and I love both Erica for being incredibly scared but incredibly brave and for Abigail for refusing to tone herself down and fit into any boxes for others. I love these characters and I hope others may be inspired to read this book as well.

Woodworking is a truly funny and sometimes chaotic look at a number of different trans experiences in a small town in South Dakota. The story mostly focuses on the unlikely friendship between seventeen-year-old Abigail, the only openly trans girl at Mitchell High School, and her English teacher, Erica, who is slowly coming to accept their new identity. The book also includes a number of other wonderful and complicated characters, a community production of Our Town, a local election, and a whole lot of complicated family dynamics.

There is so much warmth and care shown for all of the different characters in this book that even when some of the plot twists felt a bit over the top, the narrative still felt emotionally grounded. As a reader who is not trans, I felt like I took a lot away from how different individual trans experiences could be due to so many different factors. The idea of "disappearing into the woodwork" or woodworking looms large in this novel. While the different stories within effectively demonstrate all that can be lost by pursuing this choice, it ultimately articulates why this can often be the safest path for many to take.

I can't recommend this one enough! I've followed Emily's work as a critic for so long, that it was fun to see her first foray into fiction. It's abundantly clear right now that many could benefit from reading more books by authors whose backgrounds and experiences differ from their own because I can't imagine reading a wonderful book like this and not feeling empathy and understanding.

Emily St. James has given us a moving coming-of-age story about trans identity—at any age. Abigail, a foul-mouthed teenager and her middle-aged (and still in the closet) teacher, bond over all the ways in which changing how people perceive you is a gift and a threat. I found the relationship between them tricky at first—at this point in my life, I read these multi-generational narratives from the perceptive of both the teenager and the middle-aged character, but the question of age is relative within the trans community. Erica, who is decades older than Abigail, might have more life experience under her belt, but she has no history of being herself in the world.

When I first started this book, I didn't realize that the name Emily St. James sounded familiar because of the author's work on YellowJackets, a television show that uses horror to explore how teenagers deal with trauma, anger, and develop their own agency. Once that clicked, I was able to connect more to how Abigail is written. St. James isn't interested in creating sympathetic teenagers or young people older people will look at with nostalgia. She's writing teenagers as they often are—messy, volatile, and often angry.

There's a lot to love in this book, though the central election plot line was less engaging for me than the overall relationships between all of the characters.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Erica, a teacher, strikes up a very unconventional friendship with proud trans woman Abigail, who is also a student. Erica, better known as Mr. Skyberg,wants to learn how to navigate her transition while also hiding it from their small South Dakota town. This story take place around the Trump/Pence 2016 elections. The characters are so well written and developed that you can feel their emotions and empathize with what they are feeling and going through.

Woodworking takes us through this hard but sometimes funny journey of self-love, self- discovery and what it truly means to be yourself.

Thank you Netgalley and Zando for this evocative and heartwarming novel.

I love when the first page of a story just grabs your attention, just like it does in Woodworking. Erica, discovering that she really is Erica, relies heavily on her fellow 17 year old student Angela, a trans woman herself when comes to revealing ever shyly who she truly is. I’m not a big fan of adults putting pressure on children in confidence, especially when one is a superior.

Angela is a great character; sarcastic where she needed to be with walls up, confident and defiant. Erica is really represented as a character with a new life; the author reflecting on the remnants of the former pieces that don’t quite fit anymore. Much like the failed marriage, the former spouse who now seems to want kids, who is a “Connie” instead of a “Constance” - generally, a lot of reflection. The respectful way the author blacks out Erica’s dead name, I enjoyed those little touches. It was hard to imagine some of these 30 something year olds in a small town, around, making these sexual innuendos around women they just met. 20 something, maybe-30 something, much less likely. I’m a little iffy on Erica’s personality- the way she continuously places her pain and confusion above others was off putting and also felt a little immature for a mid 30 something.

At its core, the story of Woodworking is two different POVs of two women and the different stage of their transitions. Most of the writing is inner dialogue and self reflection and for the most part, it works.

Woodworking by Emily St. James ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Zando Projects
Pub Date: 3-4-25

Thank you @netgalley, @zandoprojects, and @emilystjams for the opportunity to read this eARC.

"When you figure out who you are, you want to tell everyone, and you want to tell no one, so you settle for telling the first trans person you can think of, and then you assume they’re going to be your personal advisor in the mysteries of our ways. I mean Erica and I have nothing in common but this. But I guess this is a big fucking thing to have in common. You never know who’s going to want us dead, so we’ve gotta look out for each other. I’d rather Erica have me than some rando on the internet."

The community of trans women in South Dakota is somewhat limited, so when Erica (Teacher) meets Abigail (High School Student) there is an instant bond. Abigail is the first person Erica trusts with her true self, which is slightly problematic due to their teacher/student dynamic. Their circle soon expands to Erica's ex-wife, Constance, and a local politician, Helen.

This is a touching story with a surprise about 2/3 in! I enjoyed the friendship that develops between Erica and Helen. Woodworking offers a glimpse into the hopes and fears of becoming your true self later in life.

"When Erica came out to me, I hated it, but it was also the first time anybody had ever recognized me . I felt it before she said anything. She didn’t see the trans part of me or the girl part of me or even the trans girl part of me. She just saw me. She didn’t even have to try to see me. And I could see her, too, the second she said her name. Even with her dopey mustache and her slightly too-small coffee-stained shirt, I saw her. It’s a thing we transes can do. The second we learn who somebody is, we can make them snap into place. “There you are,” we say, because there you are."

I loved this book so so so much. Thank you as always to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publish date 😊

This story hooked me right from the beginning. The characters are written so well and you can’t help but love both Erica and Abigail. They both had very realistic love stories too that both felt cute and loving and also true to the self growth that these characters experienced. Trigger warnings for shit parenting, transphobia, and trump 🙄🙄🙄 but again, very tastefully and realistically handled. 5 stars, well earned. Heartwarming and beautiful story. Would absolutely recommend.

really well-written story about your identity and understanding who you are. 5 stars. tysm for the arc. would recommend.