Shelly Jay Shore's debut novel is a triumph--the literary manifestation of an embrace that makes you feel safe enough to break down. Rules for Ghosting is a story of queer healing, and the kind of unflinching love that can pull a person through seemingly insurmountable turmoil.
Ezra Friedman grew up around death at the Chapel, his family's funeral home. Unlike his family, though, he can see the silent ghosts who hang around. He became a birth doula to get away from death and to avoid the disapproval of his grandfather's ghost when Ezra starts his transition as a trans man. But when his part-time job at the Queer Community Center is put on furlough because of renovations and his mother announces that she's been having an affair with the rabbi's wife, Ezra takes over his mother's job as the Chapel's bookkeeper. To complicate matters even more, Ezra's gorgeous new neighbor, Jonathan, volunteers at the Chapel to prepare bodies for burial according to Jewish tradition, and Jonathan's dead husband is breaking every rule Ezra thought he knew about ghosts by talking to Ezra. As long-held secrets are revealed and the status quo unravels, Ezra's world shifts and he learns new ways to love others--and himself.
With equal amounts of humor and pathos, Rules for Ghosting is sensitively and gorgeously told. 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. --Dainy Bernstein, freelance reviewer