Rules for Ghosting

A Novel

By: Shelly Jay Shore

Narrated by: Petey Gibson, Shelly Jay Shore

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 tender debut.

“The richness of this book left me breathless. . . . It also brims with such delectable drama that I had to pause mid-scene to find the nearest person and dish as though it were real-world gossip.”—Olivia Waite, The New York Times Book Review

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.

©2024 Shelly Jay Shore (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“The richness of this book left me breathless: how carefully Ezra works to square his trans self with the gendered requirements of Jewish rituals, the fragility of love after loss, the burden of feeling like you’re the only one who can hold a group of squabbling people together. It also brims with such delectable drama that I had to pause mid-scene to find the nearest person and dish as though it were real-world gossip.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A triumph. With equal amounts of humor and pathos, Rules for Ghosting is sensitively and gorgeously told. [Shelly Jay] Shore writes characters real enough to step off the page, filled with raw vulnerabilities that allow readers to share in all their pain and love.”—Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Heartwarming . . . [Tugs] at the heartstrings and leaves readers sighing happily.”—Booklist

It's a slow, amazing odyssey

You'll need time to savor this one. And perhaps, crib notes and a Jewish handbook if you're not part of the culture and faith (as I am not). But what an amazing story. And, I have rarely heard such a perfect pairing of narrator and story.

I didn't "get" it all; and I didn't need to and that was just fine with me. The author carried me with sure and certain words and I loved it.

A sweet, tender tale with so much family texture

I loved this book! Just loved all of the story-rich aspects- the ghost stories, the Jewish family dynamics, and the gender identities explored. It was such an honest portrayal of the nuances and sometimes nerouses that constitute complex individuals being in relationship with each other. highly reccomend.

Sweet family ghost story

This book was lovely. It is a kindly written story of family, community, and love with a slightly spooky flavor. The ghosts aren't a huge piece of the overall narrative as it is mostly focused on other things. If you are seeking horror or angst, this isn't it. However, it was a calm heartwarming read with fun characters.

Novel of the year

I love everything about this book. From the storytelling to the narration and all the gorgeous details in between. Perfection. Never has a dedication so perfectly set up a book for me. Thank you.

Cozy Spooks

This was such a fun read during the overlapping Halloween season and October High Holidays. Overall, the narrator is excellent but I subtracted 1 star for the mispronunciation of 80% of the Hebrew words in the book

Great story, unique storyline, a little too “perfect world”

Likes:
-Definitely a unique storyline.
-Loved that the main character is a trans man but his trans-ness isn’t the central storyline for once.
-Love the reader. I found this book because I loved his reading of a previous book I’d listened to.
-Lots of references to Jewish culture that I found interesting as a non-Jewish person. Various things were explained sufficiently for a non-Jewish person to follow without it over-explaining to the point of taking you out of the story.
-Very queer. Like really gay. lol

Dislikes:
-It did seem like the ghost seeing, including the ghosts themselves, were largely irrelevant. I mean, Ben was important to the story, but there was so much focus on the grandfather’s ghost that I thought his character would play more into the plot than it did. In reality, he really just served as Ezra’s awakening to seeing ghosts and then quite literally was just a specter in the background of the rest of the story.
-It isn’t a problem per se, but I found some of the descriptions of Ezra with his binder off did trigger my own dysphoria (I guess, fair warning to my fellow trans men and transmascs who want to read it.)
-In a similar vein, Ezra is pretty consistently described as someone who leans into traditionally feminine roles like “mothering” his sister and becoming a doula, which kind of bothered me. It’s frustrating that there is a point when his sister says as much and Ezra writes it off as knowing what she means. Ezra is also described in ways that make it fairly clear he is a bottom, and while anyone, trans man or otherwise, can lean into traditionally feminine behaviors or for that matter, be a bottom, I find it frustrating that there aren’t a wider array of depictions. The author did seem to try to juxtapose this by briefly having a hyper masculine trans man as one of Ezra’s doula clients, so that’s something.
-My final qualm with the story is just that it seems to exist in a sort of perfect world where Ezra and other characters experience very little transphobia or homophobia even from the religious community, and the issues of the story (infidelity and divorce, financial woes, etc.) get wrapped up so neatly that it feels a little silly. I can recognize though that sometimes we just need a feel good story, so I think it has its place.

Despite the criticisms, I genuinely enjoyed this book. A great read.