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PRAISE

“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

“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 tender, heart-filled novel, Rules for Ghosting is a beautiful story about identity, family, faith, community, and first love. . . . A breathtaking debut.”—ASHLEY HERRING BLAKE

RULES FOR GHOSTING

by SHELLY JAY SHORE

Rule #1: They can’t speak.
Rule #2: They can’t move.
Rule #3: They can’t hurt you.

National bestseller.
A Best of 2024, The New York Times.

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.

AUTHOR

Shelly Jay Shore is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender. Her work on queer Jewish identity has been published by Autostraddle, Hey Alma, and the Bisexual Resource Center.