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.

This book felt like being dropped into someone else’s messy, chaotic, complicated friend group and somehow becoming completely invested in all of them. 😂 These stories are funny, raw, heartbreaking, and sometimes an absolute disaster—but that’s exactly what made them feel so real.

I loved how the characters kept appearing throughout each other’s stories. You slowly start putting together who everyone is, what they’ve been through, who loves who, who drives each other crazy, and who will still show up when everything falls apart. There’s so much mess here, but there’s also so much heart.

Murphy captures queer friendship and found family in a way that feels incredibly honest. These women aren’t perfect, and they definitely aren’t trying to be. They’re partying, fighting, hooking up, screwing up, laughing, hurting, and trying to figure out their lives—and somehow, through all of it, they keep finding their way back to each other.

This was such a quick read, but these characters definitely stayed with me. Funny, heartbreaking, beautifully messy, and full of life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley.

This short story collection features a rotating cast of trans women in Chicago, hanging out together in clubs, bars, house parties, dealing with a surprise visit from one’s mother, picking up a friend from the hospital to drive her home, trying to make it as a comedian, hooking up, gossiping about the girls that aren’t here right now, avoiding a complicated ex, reaching out when somebody goes into hiding or just getting really, really wasted.
Loving, but also bitingly honest about the clashes that can exist when big personalities meet each other, tender when it’s called for and very, very realistic. Many of the characters are flawed, many of them dislike each other in messy, sometimes unfair, sometimes completely understandable ways, but what really makes this collection stand out is how despite all this there is a lot of care among the characters. You wouldn’t need to gossip about her, if you didn’t care about her in some way, after all. Community is not shown as the healing beacon that protects you from transphobia or poverty, but it is still central to your identity and impacts your life and that’s what matters here. Care can exist alongside mockery and relationships (both platonic and romantic) can be ambiguous and still be incredibly important. As a reader I loved getting to know the various characters and I especially adored getting to see who turned up in another short story again, allowing us to see their story from a different perspective or to allow for some development to have occurred between the various short stories.
While there are certainly some short stories that I thought about longer as well as main characters, I found more interesting, I can’t really pick favorites, having enjoyed each short story for its own reasons. Instead, you need to just let these stories take you to the club, allow each woman and her own circumstances to become alive around you and immerse yourself in the various circles of friends, exes, lovers and haters that make up the regulars in a community. All in all, a really great collection that allowed me some interested looks in the lives of a few fascinating characters.

In Control of the Situation: One of the slower pieces in the collection, this short story follows Agnes, a woman who enjoys partying, trying to avoid her ex Edie when some guy keeps trying to chat her up. Thankfully there’s always a beer in her hand. I liked how it very quickly set the scene, filled with colorful characters outlined in gossipy overheard sentences, examined intercommunity trans discourses, while also showing how Agnes dealt with the situation at hand. Really interesting writing, but in comparison to the other pieces this one feels a bit less intriguing to me. It did a great job at making the guy really, utterly annoying.
TW: alcoholism/heavy drinking

Thank You, I’ve been an Open Wound: Joan, a comedian, tries her best to get an in with a semi-famous comedian, currently trying to replace his opener. When she gets the gig, she has to decide if his rightwing audience is something she is willing to put up with. A quite interesting piece, I liked getting to know the characters, I liked the conflict of the main character, I really liked the way being even slightly famous as a trans woman was examined here, all in all this was a really interesting short piece.
TW: queerphobia, transmisogyny

God, Please Let Us Go On This Way: After losing her job, Orla, a butch woman is dragged to the trans cruising event at the gay club by a friend. Avoiding the men and meeting exes, she might have to talk about her feelings after all. Bittersweet and beautiful, I liked how it examined how desirability can be tied to ideas of being financially stable and how you can get so in your head, you might miss out on a good thing right in front of you. I also really enjoyed Orla as the main character, it was interesting to follow her thought process through this evening.
TW: chasers, unwanted sexual advances

The Beer Drinkers Vs. The Puppy Mill: Carolina is spending her evening at a bar, which has recently become a hot spot for trans meetups, to hang out with a few of her friends (some of which, we have met in previous short stories), when a discussion starts about the generational divide between the new girls and the old ones.
TW: injury

Hello Daughter: After not receiving any answers to her texts for a bit, Lori, a concerned mother, shows up at her daughters’ apartment to spend the evening with her. I really liked the way this examined a complicated mother-daughter relationship and how past sentences can still haunt you years after they have been spoken. Really interesting and fraught, tense and loving.
TW: misgendering, suicidal thoughts (past)

What Else Do I Have?: Joan gets a call from Carolina asking her for help picking up an injured woman from the hospital. On the ride there they talk about everything that has changed in their lives since they broke up and Joan stopped really engaging in the local trans community after her comedy gig and online popularity blew up as she became paranoid of how people viewed her now. Really interesting look into a complicated relationship with community. It is also again quite interesting to see how the various people in this community view and talk about each other when you’ve gotten to know them from their own perspectives earlier.

Circles: Sue has to get out of Cleveland for a weekend, needing to get away from how small everything seems, her exes and embarrassing faked orgasms and hits up her old friend Maggie if she can stay with her in Chicago for a bit. She is quickly introduced to the party scene and gets to know a few of the women. I really liked how this one compared transfem party-focused communities in two different places and really illustrated this feeling of meeting people you may have heard one or two stories about, but not enough to know anything specific and then trying to match them up with the stories.
TW: vomit

Pretty Girls Get Treated Better: Sybil (a name I actually remembered from the very first short story for being mentioned in the sentence “Sybil has bypassed all transfeminist thought and basically started a religion where salvation is being one hundred twenty-five pounds and cissexual”) is bored of her girlfriend Megan complaining about their last threesome not going according to her plans and further unsettled by trolls on her social profiles and begins taking it out on her friends. Sybil is certainly one of the messier characters in here, her own pain hidden behind a layer of judgement on others and it was horrifying to watch her steadily pull the mood down.
TW: misgendering, sexual harassment, weight shaming

Our Lady of Perpetual Help: Carolina is in need of a place to stay after losing her job. Calling up her ex Joan, she manages to find one, even if it is in the Ozarks. Without local community, working a dead-end job, ignoring people asking her when she’ll be back, she drifts through the days until Joan shows up so she can finally talk about whatever is keeping her hiding here. A really touching story about how easy it can be to disappear inside your own head and get stuck somewhere.
TW: mention of death and suicide

Thanks to Netgalley and Little Puss Press for my free digital ARC of this short story collection! If you love Casey Plett’s fiction then you need Shut Up I Love You, I’ll Call You Tomorrow - which makes sense since Plett is the founder of this publisher (I think)! It’s a collection of interconnected stories focusing on the lives of several party-loving trans women in Chicago. Even I sometimes get sick of drug- and alcohol-fuelled narratives but I couldn’t help but fall in love with these women, living for the next party, chasing the high, navigating the rather incestuous nature of lesbian spaces (you’ll deffo lose track of who’s slept with who).
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I think my fave story was Thank You I’ve Been An Open Wound, where an up and coming comedian finds her career taking off unexpectedly. She has to grapple with dangerous hecklers, parasocial relationships as the internet becomes obsessed with her, and she also struggles with remaining true to her principles or cashing in on the ‘idpol’ potential to make serious money.
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The stories all tackle serious shit like this but there’s almost a levity to it. It’s conversational in tone, you’re drawn into this messy gaggle of dolls, all of their petty (okay some not so petty) drama, like a bestie giving you the gossip from a party you missed.
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Like most short story collections, there were a couple that didn’t hit as hard, but overall I loved this collection. 🥰

Hiiiighly recommend. Messy, realistic, incisive, funny, emotional, unique. Everything was intentional and I didn't want it to end. So many short story collections feel random with varying quality and tone, or those that are interconnected don't click. This was not like that at all and might even be my new favorite??

Thank you to LittlePuss Press and NetGalley for an eARC, all thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed this. This collection of interconnected short stories about trans women in Chicago is vibrant, queer, raw, funny, touching, messy, and pulsing with life. I loved how real the characters felt.
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

Perhaps it's because I'm from Chicago, but Shut Up, I Love You, I’ll Call You Tomorrow really captivated me. The jumble of characters created a complex web of relationships that was ever-changing, with so many recognizable spots come to life in the city until the book had its finale in the Ozarks. This was trans womanhood incarnate, how it feels to not be a naïve girl anymore, but not quite knowing exactly who you are, either. It's best to accept the chaos of new character names every story; it adds to the overall feeling (I mean half the cast didn't know which Carolina was North or South, anyway). The connections the women shared were deep, Joan and Carolina's striking me the most. I also loved to see into the minds of many of the characters, then how they were perceived: that made them feel three-dimensional even without the hefty page count. Messy, raw, and beautiful.