Lots of fabulous idiosyncratic characters make up the Greek chorus of SUILYICYT. I'm endeared to the true to life illustration of what it feels like to be ensnared in a quixotic web of trans community. I feel like I know these girls, and honestly, I might. I love Chicago(land) and I love transgender. Thank you Sloane Murphy for putting pen to paper and thank you littlepuss press for sending this message to the universe!

A wonderful collection of connected short stories about a close knit community of trans folks in Chicago. Absolutely killer character writing, filled with pathos, humor and heart. Feels full of life. A real winner.

This contemporary romance struck a wonderful balance between humor and heartfelt emotion. The characters felt genuine, and I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop through both the messy and meaningful moments. While a few conflicts resolved a little too easily, the engaging dialogue and emotional warmth made this a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the shop where I work for access to an advance copy of this book!

This story collection captures and depicts a wide range of experiences and beliefs in the transfeminine community and bares it all: the good, the bad, and every unimaginable thing in between. Every person knows that mess is a part of life, but these effervescent vignettes are a riot that will endear readers to all the very human characters. Fans of Torrey Peters and Maggie Nelson will enjoy this book!

Overall a well-woven story focusing on community. Thank you for opening a window into the lives of women and those they love. I did find the double Carolina naming a bit confusing.

Expert writing and storytelling that was super visual for me. I enjoyed how each story flowed from one to the next. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

An absolute fever dream of a book filled with a ton of characters each with their own interlocking part of the story. I feel like it went by so fast and yet, I got so much from it at the same time. I'm not usually a fan of short story collections but I loved this one because they show how connected we all are, even when we don't know it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my gifted EARC.

This was a great novella of interconnected slices of life between a community of trans women, a community I rarely get to read enough about in such a fun, honest context. I particularly enjoyed seeing Joan's story through to the end. I'm too used to reading stories about trans women that are so bathed in tragedy that it was a wonderful relief to read one that wasn't, though the undercurrent is always there. This is a rare time where I think this book could have been longer. I would have liked to see more of Freddie with her mom, their relationship was really interesting.

Thank you to LittlePuss Press and Netgalley for the eARC!

Set in the midwest among an ever-renewing crop of young and young-ish trans women and their lovers and friends, Shut Up, I Love You, I'll Call You Tomorrow, is a slim volume of interconnected short stories that punches well above its weight. I read the collection in one sitting and closed the book feeling the way one does on the way home from a really great party--full of gossip and flashes of poignancy, with the bittersweet nostalgia for a time that has only just passed and may never come again. I loved this book immediately and felt the rare thrill all booksellers know, of recognizing a major new talent just as she emerges on the scene. I can't wait to see what Sloane Murphy does next.

A very good series of "slice of life" short stories. The author is excellent at capturing the feeling of moving to a new city at a certain point in time at a certain point in your life and your new friends who you share defining experiences with. A very specific, but very universal kind of nostalgia. The characters don't have much in common, but what they have in common is pretty darn big.

a loose, boozy, golden-hearted short story collection. by the end, reading it felt like spending time with my friends. I hope a bunch of folks read this one.

Shut Up, I Love You, I'll Call You Tomorrow by Sloane Murphy is a super fun, fast-paced read packed with snappy banter, messy drama, and total emotional chaos. The story moves really quick, balancing funny, laugh-out-loud moments with genuinely sweet and relatable relationship dynamics that keep you hooked. It hits that perfect mix of high-energy back-and-forth dialogue and cozy comfort-read vibes where you just want to sit back and watch everything unfold. It’s an easy, addictive page-turner if you're in the mood for a lighthearted, witty story full of heart and witty banter.

what a beautiful, honest, raw & important piece of trans/queer writing!

this reads like being dropped into the middle of a mini series about a super fun and just as messy friend group of trans women and getting to experience it all as a bystander.

this feels like a love letter to the trans community and queer party scene of chicago and it was equally a delicious treat of truly just raw, queer, tomfoolery and also devastating vulnerability via strained familial relationships stemming from being a trans/queer person.

there's a lot going on and a lot of characters so some parts were a blur but despite that, there are so many pieces of this short story collection that i will be thinking about and holding close to my heart.

thank you to netgalley and the publishers for my
arc copy (opinions are completely my own and 100% authentic)!

Shut Up, I Love You, I'll Call You Tomorrow is a collection of short stories about a group of trans women in Chicago, following their parties and interpersonal dramas. Each story follows a particular character, but the women all appear in each others' stories too, and the stories move forward in time, meaning that you build up tiny pictures of the characters as you make your way through the collection.

This is like getting to live vicariously through someone else's friend group drama: you start to learn things about the major players, you can't always remember who everyone is, but you're interested nonetheless. My personal favourite parts were Joan's attempts to make it in her comedy career (which looks at the state of modern comedy and what you have to give of yourself for fame) and the final story in the collection, exploring trying to disappear (and the darkly comic failure of just hoping a tornado will do the work for you).

The collection consciously never quite gives you everything, refusing to fill in every gap or explain who people are. Instead, you have to let the tangled drama take over.

I love love loved reading this!
There are not so many books like this and this was a breath of fresh air.
Shut up, I love you, I'll call you tomorrow is a story about the lives of young trans women in Chicago, every one of them had their vices and stories. How they navigate life, what they're facing and how they're existing in their own community. They were also hella messy but we queer people are messy, so it's hilarious 😂
I want to read more from the author, I would love to check out their other works if available.

I’m genuinely surprised by how such a short book managed to pull me so completely into these characters’ lives. At times, it felt less like reading about them and more like actually being there, catching glimpses of their conversations, relationships and at times, messy, lives.

The characters felt wonderfully real and the writing had such an intimate, conversational quality. Murphy somehow manages to pack so much life, humour and heart into so few pages. A little book that left a much bigger impression than I expected.

This short stories about a group of trans women in Chicago has emotion, honesty and certain nostalgia in it. The writing makes one feel connected to the community, it's like you're in one of those parties. Also true: too many names, but once you let yourself go it isn't that hard. Not that common to read about a trans women community set in 2025/2026. New and fresh.

Although it was a little hard to keep track of everyone in this book, I enjoyed it so much. All of the conversations felt so real and there's such a sense of a lived in community that has experienced so much together. Everything was interwoven nicely, as real life often is, that I could fully believe that these were women who had spent years going through thick and thin together.

Protect the dolls <3

Shut Up, I Love You I'll call You Tomorrow follows a group of Chicago based Trans women navigating regular adulthood, the changing doll scene in the city, and complicated relationships. Told in short stories about each of the women, this novella provides glimpses into the lives of this chaotic group, painting a vivid picture of the various ways transness can impact someone's lived experience.

I loved this book. It felt like gossip, like a long phone call with a girlfriend about people you love and hate and love to hate. The women are all complex and there is this undercurrent of knowing that some of them really do dislike each other but sometimes community has to come before personal grudges. Theres a scene in particular where Maggie begs her out of town friend Sue to "please be nice" as they're going into a party because, regardless of how things may have gone down, these women still really only have each other.

There's conversations around the old and the new girls, how women who transitioned before sentiments towards trans identity started to change (of course transphobia is still alive and well and we have a long way to go) and how those coming into themselves in the new "woke" era have different ideas of how to engage with gender and each other. The old girls constantly complain that the new ones don't know how to act while the new girls complain that the old ones are closed off and carrying a chip on their shoulder. Almost in the vein of "you don't know real struggle so what are you complaining about?".

There's also a lot to be said about the sexualization of trans women, with some of them engaging in sex work as a mixed means of validation and income and others having very strong opinions against it.


My two main qualms were the lack of explicitly black or POC women with a story based in Chicago, as well as the amount of characters. The first could just be the phenomenon of assuming characters are white unless stated, but to my knowledge there was only one black doll in the book. There was however an admittedly funny interaction in which jokes about how misbehaved the girls earned a rebuttal that that was white doll behavior, which though no expounded on, I hazard a guess this is meant to suggest that black dolls are still black, and there is an extra level of danger that, despite their transness, white dolls dont need to be concerned with.

There were also a lo5 of characters being mentioned in these stories and the inclusion of North and South Carolina that was referenced and mixed up became a little confusing, but I think the girls themselves make a joke about not being able to keep up with the entire scene so its possible this was deliberate and could even add to that sort of gossip feel, what gets lost in telephone.

I think that I also just enjoyed the recognition that even in transition, trans women are not immune to internalized misogyny. Some of the dolls joke about having "invented feminism" joking about the ways that they are becoming aware of things that cis women have struggled with forever. Freddie's argument with her mother about being excluded from Freddie's new identity, and even how almost jealous of Freddie's freeness she is, also touches on this. While there is of course differences in the cis and Trans female experience there are still valuable ideas of womanhood that can be pulled from each.

Overall, it was a wonderful read. Emotional, compelling and in someways heartbreaking, this novella is great for anyone who loves complicated and dynamic characters, nuanced conversations about identity and doesn't mind a little mess.