She could no longer fantasize about being with a woman without simultaneously fantasizing about being her, the two thoughts intrinsically bound up in each other. She longed to dissolve into a diaspora of herself, her molecules, a part of every woman she had seen on the sidewalk or in the store or on a magazine cover, every woman she had longed to understand on some level she felt frustrated in her inability to articulate. She wanted to tell them how lucky they were. She knew they wouldn’t get it.
page 125, Erica
Table of Contents
Woodworking or Workingwood
…I don’t think that joke format quite works here but I’ll go with it because my currently sleep deprived brain thinks its funny. I first heard about Woodworking from the booktuber Plant Based Bride in her 2025 book bracket video.
I thought the premise and the subject matter of the book sounded interesting so it became one of the books I placed a library hold on at the end of 2025 and so here we are in January 2026 with this being the fourth book of the month and part of the second library haul of the year. I promise I’ll stop counting library hauls at some point this year…maybe. Counting them is part of a thread keeping me somewhat sane.
I picked this book to read right after The Isle in the Silver Sea as a way of reading a completely different genre of book instead of reading another of the fantasy books I have borrowed from the library. I find that switching it up prevents falling into a reading slump and this month has been filled with some very different books which is an ideal situation for me.
Let’s get into it.
The Book
Woodworking hit me like a goddamn freight train. Going into it I was expecting a heavy read considering what I had heard about the book but I don’t think I was ready for the walloping my heart and soul was about to get when I started reading this book on a Sunday morning. I ended up finishing the book the very same day and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Before I get too into the weeds, let’s start with the basics. This is a contemporary fiction novel set in a small town by the name of Mitchell in the US state of South Dakota. The year is 2016 and the story starts in September 2016 at the beginning of the school year for Mitchell High.
Woodworking is at its core, a character study of its two main characters. Erica Skyberg, thirty-five years old, recently divorced and a trans woman in the closet. Enter Abigail Hawkes, seventeen years old and Mitchell High’s only trans student. Thus begins a story of a initially awkward friendship that blossoms into a strong bond.
As far as character studies go I think this is the best I’ve read in a long long time. Both Erica and Abigail are excruciatingly complex and nuanced characters. The personalities of both of these characters come across very very well. Abigail especially felt like the most realistic depiction of a marginalized teenager that I have seen in a minute.
She is prickly, mean, and cynical because the world she inhabits is filled with hostility towards people like her. They are very much a teenager who behaves like a teenager which reminded me why I generally don’t enjoy YA books anymore. I was initially a little put off by her POV but I very much warmed up to her character as the story went on.
Erica on the other hand, is nervous, terrified of losing everything she has so she can live her life as her true self. She is worried that everyone around her knows that she is trans and is judging her at every moment. She is thinking that just maybe she should go back into the closet entirely because it would be in some senses easier. Her interactions with the people around her – Abigail who guides her through her transition, the various complexities of Erica’s relationship with her ex-wife Constance are what make this story really damn good.
Most of the story takes place from the point-of-view of either Abigail or Erica. There are very few chapters from a third point-of-view who I shall leave unnamed as it would constitute a major spoiler. I’ll just say here that this unnamed POV was heartbreaking to read from and I ended tearing a fair bit reading those chapters.
Woodworking wears its themes on its sleeve. It is a story about being transgender in a small American town which is institutionally hostile to the very idea of gender nonconformity. It is a story about the stark differences in life experiences between Abigail and Erica but also the similarities that bind them in a friendship spanning generations. It is a story about the comfort and power of good friendships, found family, and community.
This is a story that made me feel a whole host of emotions. It is at points very funny and had me laughing out loud, Abigail’s sense of humour is something to be cherished. It is at other points sad and heartbreaking. And then the story will throw you a lightning bolt in the darkness with moments of cathartic joy and triumph which made me cry tears of happiness. It was one hell of a reading experience.
Concluding Thoughts
I think January 2026 just might be the best reading month I’ve had in a long time. I don’t think I have had a month where three different books in the same month earned their place on my books of the year list for the year. Woodworking is one of those books where right after finishing it, I immediately put it on my 2025 BOTY list. I am going to be thinking about this book for a while yet.
This book is a well crafted, thoughtful, nuanced depiction of the complex lives of transgender people in the US and it well worth adding to your reading list. This is a book that is especially relevant in our current times as the marginalization and oppression of transgender people in the US has only increased in volume and violence since this book was written.
I am grateful to Plant Based Bride for the recommendation and I am glad that I read this book.
That is all from me. See y’all in the next one.
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