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Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You can catch her on Instagram shouting about the queer books she loves and sharing photos of the walks she takes in the hills of Western Mass (while listening to audiobooks, of course).

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This is one of those books that many of the readers I trust most and turn to for recommendations rave about. Not only that, but people have been recommending it to me personally, as in: “Laura, you are going to love this book,” or “Laura, this book made me think of you.”

Sometimes going into a read with high expectations can ruin the experience, but in this case—thankfully!—it didn’t. I loved this book. I adored this book. This book is maybe my favorite novel I’ve read so far this year, and it’s definitely in my top three. Everyone was right. It’s a gem. So I’m joining the ranks of readers exuberantly raving about it, trusting that I’m not setting you up for disappointment, either.

Woodworking by Emily St. James

This debut, overflowing with warmth and heart, is set in Mitchell, South Dakota. Erica is a 35-year-old English teacher who hasn’t told anyone she’s trans—not her ex-wife or her maybe-friend/co-director of the local community theatre. She’s terrified of what coming out will mean in a small conservative South Dakota town. So she latches on to the only other trans woman she knows, her 17-year-old student, Abigail. Abigail is not only out; she’s also loud, visible, and not afraid to speak her mind. She’s definitely not thrilled when her teacher comes out to her and expects her to fill the role of trans mom, but as their friendship develops, she realizes (reluctantly) that maybe she needs Erica’s friendship just as badly as Erica needs hers.

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Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You can catch her on Instagram shouting about the queer books she loves and sharing photos of the walks she takes in the hills of Western Mass (while listening to audiobooks, of course).

View All posts by Laura Sackton

It’s hard to articulate just how beautiful and heartwarming this book is. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a novel that uses point-of-view with such thoughtfulness and insight, and in the particular way that St. James does. Not only do we get to know Abigail and Erica through their distinct voices, but St. James uses the actual mechanics of POV to explore their identities and relationships. The novel is somewhat slow (complementary), unfolding at the pace of everyday life, but there is so much magic in the pacing, in the POV shifts, in how it all comes together.

At heart, this is a book about trans women learning to take care of themselves by taking care of each other. It’s about how impossible it is to be alone, and what happens when someone sees you—when you let yourself be seen. It’s about cross-generational queer relationships and how sometimes queer youth make life possible for queer adults the same way queer adults make life possible for queer youth. And it’s about how messy all of this is. Nobody in this book is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. They cause each other harm. There’s nothing neat about this story, which makes it all the more satisfying.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished reading it, and one thing that has stuck with me is how solidly hopeful it is. It doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the world. It’s set during the 2016 election, and we all know that things have only gotten worse for trans people in the U.S. since then. The trans women in this book face very real violence. Erica is afraid to come out for good reason—she knows what might happen if she does. It’s hopeful not because St. James ignores any of this, but because the characters find each other anyway. They refuse to disappear. They choose life on their own terms. Not everyone survives times like the times we are living through right now. But some of us do. These characters do. And that means something. That matters. This book is an earnest love song to trans women and the communities they create. That matters.

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