"Fun Home meets Ghost in this queer love story about Ezra, the trans son of Jewish funeral directors, who can see ghosts, and the handsome widow he is trying not to fall in love with"
God I love reading quirky queer high-concept books! Shelly Jay Shore’s novel is a lovely mix of supernatural and slice of life, bringing together the melodramatic and the relatable: from ghosts to gossipy group chats, the novel keeps surprising you with revelations of family secrets, births, deaths, accidents and tragedies – even Ezra says his life is ‘like a soap opera’. But at its heart, the book is interested in chronicling the movements of relationships – particularly family dynamics, and a very sweet romantic story-line which included beautifully tender scenes between the two of them which have lingered with me even after I finished the book. I really want angelic Jonathan to fall in love with me!
It’s always a wonderful experience to read a trans main character, and Ezra is both recognisable and unique in his queerness, and the way the book explores his relationship to his family, body, and intimacy.
I kept looking forward to reading this and am excited to read whatever Shelly Jay Shore writes next.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER To save his family's failing funeral home-and his own chance at a queer love story-a reluctant clairvoyant must embrace the gift he long ignored in this poignant and warmhearted debut.
"For top-notch drama, this year's medal goes to Rules for Ghosting. . . . Here, actual ghosts haunt the quiet and tender moments, and it's the scenes at family holidays that leave you rattled and gasping."-The New York Times Book Review ("One of the Best Romance Novels of 2024")
Ezra Friedman sees ghosts, which made growing up in a funeral home complicated. It might have been easier if his grandfather's ghost didn't give him scathing looks of disapproval as he went through a second, HRT-induced puberty, or if he didn't have the pressure of all those relatives-living and dead-judging every choice he makes. It's no wonder that Ezra runs as far away from the family business as humanly possible.
But when the floor of his dream job drops out from under him and his mother uses the family Passover seder to tell everyone she's running off with the rabbi's wife, Ezra finds himself back in the thick of it. With his parents' marriage imploding and the Friedman Family Memorial Chapel on the brink of financial ruin, Ezra agrees to step into his mother's shoes and help out . . . which means long days surrounded by ghosts that no one else can see.
And then there's his unfortunate crush on Jonathan, the handsome funeral home volunteer . . . who just happens to live downstairs from Ezra's new apartment . . . and the appearance of the ghost of Jonathan's gone-too-soon husband, Ben, who is breaking every spectral rule that Ezra knows.
Because Ben can speak. He can move. And as Ezra tries to keep his family together and his heart from getting broken, he realizes that there's more than one way to be haunted-and more than one way to become a ghost.
'Part ghost story, part Jewish family epic, and part romance, RULES FOR GHOSTING is a meditation on life, death, and healing that is at turns bitingly funny and deeply moving' - Anita Kelly
