Book Thoughts: Woodworking by Emily St. James

Oof. I feel like I need to write a post about this book because I had plans to talk about it with a book club member in depth, but my experience was basically reading this in 3 days, crying off and on, slapping a "5/5" on it in my brain, and then getting on with my life and wondering how fast I was going to forget all the details. There's no single story for everyone out there, but this book is the most in-depth and nuanced trans experience that I've personally read.1 The way it accomplishes this is by not locking us to just one trans woman's experience, but juxtaposing two — and then later in the book, three. The narrative is both self-aware of how all-encompassing the unmooring feeling of recognizing yourself as a gender contrary to society's desires is and that having these big feelings can actually be really annoying to other trans people you have one-sidedly made into your guide. 1.One book review I read said they were annoyed with how Erica only ever talked about how much she…