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Waiting on a Friend
East Village, summer of 1984. Renata is a young dyke-about-town who happens to have the ability to see ghosts, which has been happening more and more frequently as her friends have started dying of what has recently been named AIDS.
So, when her best friend Mark dies, she assumes she'll see him again. There's no way Mark wouldn't give her a chance to say goodbye, would he? But to her disappointment - and increasingly, her concern - Mark doesn't appear.
Renata has other problems, too. There's something strange happening in her advertisements for paranormal 'exterminators' who promise to clear out bad energy keep showing up. At first, she's sure they're scam artists, but it becomes clear they're actually trapping ghosts as part of a city-wide gentrification plot to make downtown safe for Reaganites.
Told with humour and pathos, Waiting on a Friend is a genre-bending retelling of Queer history that manages to be both heartbreaking and healing.
So, when her best friend Mark dies, she assumes she'll see him again. There's no way Mark wouldn't give her a chance to say goodbye, would he? But to her disappointment - and increasingly, her concern - Mark doesn't appear.
Renata has other problems, too. There's something strange happening in her advertisements for paranormal 'exterminators' who promise to clear out bad energy keep showing up. At first, she's sure they're scam artists, but it becomes clear they're actually trapping ghosts as part of a city-wide gentrification plot to make downtown safe for Reaganites.
Told with humour and pathos, Waiting on a Friend is a genre-bending retelling of Queer history that manages to be both heartbreaking and healing.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published May 26, 2026
About the author
Natalie Adler
4 books96 followersI am a writer, teacher, and editor. I have an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College, a PhD in Comparative Literature from Brown University, and was a Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction. Currently, I am an editor at Lux, a feminist magazine. I am from New Jersey and live in New York City with my wife and our Pomeranian.
Waiting on a Friend is my first novel. Check out the bookshelf "waiting-on-a-friend-research" for everything I read to write it!
Waiting on a Friend is my first novel. Check out the bookshelf "waiting-on-a-friend-research" for everything I read to write it!
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 279 reviews
November 16, 2025
I wrote this book and I think it's great.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
"I see dead people"... you might have heard that before, and our lesbian protagonist Renata (Renata / Adler, see what the author did there?) is also afflicted by this condition: She encounters the ghosts of the deceased, and as this is New York in the 1980's and she is moving in queer circles, many of them have succumbed to AIDS, like a former neighbor who died a particularly horrendous death and appears to her screaming in terror. The ghost Renata is waiting and longing for though is Mark, her gay former roommate, friend and lover (sexuality is fluid, people), who for some reason doesn't seem to contact her from the bardo. Will the two meet again before the ghost busters, ähem, a spirit-hunting company named Manhattan Remediation captures him?
The ghost angle is of course very magical realism, very George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo, Vigil), very A Christmas Carol, and I'd like to point readers potentially lashing out that a young woman who hasn't lived through the 80's AIDS crisis and isn't well: a gay man should not tell a story like this to Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers, which is a damn masterpiece. The thing is though: We are blessed with many excellent first-hand accounts of the AIDS crisis, written by the likes of Hervé Guibert, David Wojnarowicz, Colm Tóibín, Larry Kramer, Edmund White, Tony Kushner and other literary icons, which means that a young person now writing about AIDS in the 80's really has to add something to this high-quality first-hand canon, aesthetically or content-wise (which is possible, see Makkai).
And I liked the ghost idea, which propels the story forward as readers and Renata are pondering who appears as a ghost and who doesn't and why, but in the long run, the concept lacks stringency - which is true for the text as a whole: There is Renata's drug-addicted mother, pointing to the heroin crisis. There is violence against gender non-conforming people. There is relationship drama aplenty (partly unrelated to the extreme circumstances, partly illuminating how people deal with the mayhem around them). And then there is the question whether the ghostbuster company isn't a political ploy to drive the poor, the sick, the outcasts out of their flats to push an agenda for gentrification (which echoes the initial governmental and societal refusal to fight AIDS and support victims and their families). And what are these hunters doing with the captured ghosts anyway? All of these ideas make sense individually, it's clear what the author aims to do, but the bits do not come together to form a cohesive whole, and that impression is heightened by the stumbling pacing in the second half, which includes lengthy detours and hence loses steam.
Last week, I finished an almost 400 page Icelandic book about addiction in a day, but I struggled with this much shorter novel for over a week, because I couldn't maintain a sufficient level of interest for the slightly convoluted plot. Still, I'm very curious to read the thoughts of others who get more out of the text than me.
The ghost angle is of course very magical realism, very George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo, Vigil), very A Christmas Carol, and I'd like to point readers potentially lashing out that a young woman who hasn't lived through the 80's AIDS crisis and isn't well: a gay man should not tell a story like this to Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers, which is a damn masterpiece. The thing is though: We are blessed with many excellent first-hand accounts of the AIDS crisis, written by the likes of Hervé Guibert, David Wojnarowicz, Colm Tóibín, Larry Kramer, Edmund White, Tony Kushner and other literary icons, which means that a young person now writing about AIDS in the 80's really has to add something to this high-quality first-hand canon, aesthetically or content-wise (which is possible, see Makkai).
And I liked the ghost idea, which propels the story forward as readers and Renata are pondering who appears as a ghost and who doesn't and why, but in the long run, the concept lacks stringency - which is true for the text as a whole: There is Renata's drug-addicted mother, pointing to the heroin crisis. There is violence against gender non-conforming people. There is relationship drama aplenty (partly unrelated to the extreme circumstances, partly illuminating how people deal with the mayhem around them). And then there is the question whether the ghostbuster company isn't a political ploy to drive the poor, the sick, the outcasts out of their flats to push an agenda for gentrification (which echoes the initial governmental and societal refusal to fight AIDS and support victims and their families). And what are these hunters doing with the captured ghosts anyway? All of these ideas make sense individually, it's clear what the author aims to do, but the bits do not come together to form a cohesive whole, and that impression is heightened by the stumbling pacing in the second half, which includes lengthy detours and hence loses steam.
Last week, I finished an almost 400 page Icelandic book about addiction in a day, but I struggled with this much shorter novel for over a week, because I couldn't maintain a sufficient level of interest for the slightly convoluted plot. Still, I'm very curious to read the thoughts of others who get more out of the text than me.
June 16, 2026
firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc!
waiting on a friend is a queer magical realism novel that takes place in good ol' NYC - specifically the east village - and follows our fmc renata after her friends being to die from the aids epidemic. the twist? she can see their ghosts.
this was an emotional read, and the sense of helplessness is extremely strong throughout the book; however, renata and her community stick together through the very low lows and high highs.
i also listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a great job!
waiting on a friend is a queer magical realism novel that takes place in good ol' NYC - specifically the east village - and follows our fmc renata after her friends being to die from the aids epidemic. the twist? she can see their ghosts.
this was an emotional read, and the sense of helplessness is extremely strong throughout the book; however, renata and her community stick together through the very low lows and high highs.
i also listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a great job!
January 5, 2026
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy! This novel releases in May.
Easy 5 stars and will likely end up on my list of favorite books of 2026: Waiting on a Friend is a look at queer life in NYC in 1984–the early years of the AIDS crisis, the fear and agony of dying so young from a new, unfamiliar disease. The stigma of having it. The grief of losing friends and lovers to it. This is a story of punks and outcasts in the night clubs and back alleys and shitty apartments of the Lower East Side. It’s a story of the spiritual residue we leave behind when we die, and the privilege of giving and receiving love while we are alive. This one made me feel all the things.
Easy 5 stars and will likely end up on my list of favorite books of 2026: Waiting on a Friend is a look at queer life in NYC in 1984–the early years of the AIDS crisis, the fear and agony of dying so young from a new, unfamiliar disease. The stigma of having it. The grief of losing friends and lovers to it. This is a story of punks and outcasts in the night clubs and back alleys and shitty apartments of the Lower East Side. It’s a story of the spiritual residue we leave behind when we die, and the privilege of giving and receiving love while we are alive. This one made me feel all the things.
December 4, 2025
Earlier this year I was in Provincetown thrifting for books, and I found my white whale: a beautiful edition of Macho Sluts for all of ten dollars. Pat Califia's leatherd*ke er0tica (apparently you can't say this on Goodreads?) is some of the greatest ever written as far as I'm concerned, but I also wanted it because reading it is like time travel. I was born in the 90s, and I don't personally know anyone who died from AIDS. I have friends who are positive, but they have no detectable viral load--and just like that, it's like they don't have HIV at all. It's easy to take PrEP for granted when I can get it at the clinic and take it as a precaution. The year that I'm writing this review is the first time the US hasn't commemorated World AIDS Day since 1988.
So. Waiting on a Friend. This hit me right where I think it meant to. Since I too am a d*ke about town, I see and recognize so much of myself and my loved ones in Renata and her friends. The novel follows Renata through a long summer in 1984, interspersed with flashbacks and recollections throughout. Renata's best friend is dead, and she's waiting to see his ghost--she can, after all, see other ghosts, other dead people she knows. But Mark is elusive.
Simultaneously, a shady company called Manhattan Remediation is offering the "service" of removing presences--the kind of things that Renata can see outright, and that are causing discomfort for the comfortable (i.e. the yuppie types moving into East Village apartments vacated due to death and poverty and uninhabitable conditions). It's sinister, and it's putting a generation of the already-dead at risk of being entrapped in their afterlife.
Waiting on a Friend follows Renata and her crew of friends, lovers, and beloveds as they grapple with grief, gentrification, illness, drugs, and violence under the long specter of AIDS. It's a story about queer resilience, about how annoying it is to work in a vintage clothing shop, about how to hold your friends when they need it, and about how to learn to care about the living when all you can think about are the dead.
This is one of my favorite things I've read this year. Once it comes out, I suspect that a lot of my fellow leatherd*kes are going to read it and love it, and I will be very proudly bragging that I actually read it last December.
Recommended for: queers of all stripes, everyone who goes to my local cruising spot, anyone craving recent-ish historical novels with a magical realism twist, anyone who's ever been priced out of their lovely apartment.
So. Waiting on a Friend. This hit me right where I think it meant to. Since I too am a d*ke about town, I see and recognize so much of myself and my loved ones in Renata and her friends. The novel follows Renata through a long summer in 1984, interspersed with flashbacks and recollections throughout. Renata's best friend is dead, and she's waiting to see his ghost--she can, after all, see other ghosts, other dead people she knows. But Mark is elusive.
Simultaneously, a shady company called Manhattan Remediation is offering the "service" of removing presences--the kind of things that Renata can see outright, and that are causing discomfort for the comfortable (i.e. the yuppie types moving into East Village apartments vacated due to death and poverty and uninhabitable conditions). It's sinister, and it's putting a generation of the already-dead at risk of being entrapped in their afterlife.
Waiting on a Friend follows Renata and her crew of friends, lovers, and beloveds as they grapple with grief, gentrification, illness, drugs, and violence under the long specter of AIDS. It's a story about queer resilience, about how annoying it is to work in a vintage clothing shop, about how to hold your friends when they need it, and about how to learn to care about the living when all you can think about are the dead.
This is one of my favorite things I've read this year. Once it comes out, I suspect that a lot of my fellow leatherd*kes are going to read it and love it, and I will be very proudly bragging that I actually read it last December.
Recommended for: queers of all stripes, everyone who goes to my local cruising spot, anyone craving recent-ish historical novels with a magical realism twist, anyone who's ever been priced out of their lovely apartment.
January 13, 2026
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 26, 2026.
“And I felt profoundly sad for both of them in that moment, these people who refused to be near anyone else's feelings but also wanted to shut down their own, to make it all clean. […]You can deny the reality of other people only if you refuse to know what it means to be a person, to close your eyes to sickness and death and difference only to end up denying your own.”
This book was a poignant tale about grief, and what it means to be there for the people you love. How to not look away when they need you most.
We follow Renata as she navigates loss, rage, and emptiness surrounding the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. While there are obviously large parts of this story that will bring you to tears, there are also parts that will warm your heart and make you laugh, and parts that will make you think.
This book was unlike the books I typically read, but it drew me in almost instantly, and I finished it in one evening. A book that’s hard to put down, paced well, teaches me something and is gripping enough to bring me to tears deserves 5 stars.
“And I felt profoundly sad for both of them in that moment, these people who refused to be near anyone else's feelings but also wanted to shut down their own, to make it all clean. […]You can deny the reality of other people only if you refuse to know what it means to be a person, to close your eyes to sickness and death and difference only to end up denying your own.”
This book was a poignant tale about grief, and what it means to be there for the people you love. How to not look away when they need you most.
We follow Renata as she navigates loss, rage, and emptiness surrounding the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. While there are obviously large parts of this story that will bring you to tears, there are also parts that will warm your heart and make you laugh, and parts that will make you think.
This book was unlike the books I typically read, but it drew me in almost instantly, and I finished it in one evening. A book that’s hard to put down, paced well, teaches me something and is gripping enough to bring me to tears deserves 5 stars.
Read
May 29, 2026Historical fiction with a supernatural twist, set in NYC during the AIDS crisis. Renata is a queer woman who can see ghosts and is grieving the lost of her best friend who died of AIDS, desperate to see his ghost and yet doesn't. Meanwhile, there's a company presenting themselves as paranormal exterminators who are really quite tied to gentrification efforts. It's a slow-burn, pensive novel about grief, particularly when tied to untimely death, and queer culture in the 80's. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
May 28, 2026
Some ghosts haunt you because they loved you. Others haunt you because the world failed them.💔👻
Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler is a haunting, emotional historical fiction novel set during the AIDS crisis of the early 1980s, and it absolutely broke my heart. 🕯️
Renata is losing friends far too quickly to the AIDS virus, all while carrying a secret of her own—she can see ghosts. The dead appear to her regularly, lingering in apartments, bars, and memories, but the one person she desperately wants to see refuses to come back. Her best friend (and occasional hookup) Mark has recently died, yet his ghost never appears. Meanwhile, Renata struggles with the painful realization that Mark may have been emotionally closer to his boyfriend Patrick in his final months than he was to her. She’s also still tangled up in unresolved feelings for her ex-girlfriend Claude. 💔
What really worked for me was the magical realism element. I’m always drawn to ghost stories and lyrical magical realism, and the scenes where Renata encounters the dead were some of the most beautiful parts of the book. 👻✨ There’s something deeply poetic about the way Adler writes grief—as if love itself leaves echoes behind.
But make no mistake: this is a heavy read. Watching the fear, stigma, and cruelty directed toward the LGBTQ+ community during the AIDS epidemic is devastating. There were no effective treatments yet, no quick public health response, and so many people were abandoned simply because of who they loved. Reading this feels especially important now because it reminds us how recent this history truly is. 🕯️🌈
At only 288 pages, this is a relatively quick read, but emotionally it carries a lot of weight. It’s heartbreaking, intimate, and reflective. Definitely not a “feel-good” book, but if you’re in the mood for something thoughtful that may leave you crying quietly at 1 a.m., this is worth picking up. 😭📚
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
⚠️ Trigger warnings for grief, death, homophobia, illness/AIDS, and loss.
If you enjoy historical fiction with magical realism, queer history, literary writing, and emotionally devastating stories about friendship and grief, I think this one is worth your time. 💫
QOTD: What’s a book that emotionally wrecked you but you’re still glad you read?
Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler is a haunting, emotional historical fiction novel set during the AIDS crisis of the early 1980s, and it absolutely broke my heart. 🕯️
Renata is losing friends far too quickly to the AIDS virus, all while carrying a secret of her own—she can see ghosts. The dead appear to her regularly, lingering in apartments, bars, and memories, but the one person she desperately wants to see refuses to come back. Her best friend (and occasional hookup) Mark has recently died, yet his ghost never appears. Meanwhile, Renata struggles with the painful realization that Mark may have been emotionally closer to his boyfriend Patrick in his final months than he was to her. She’s also still tangled up in unresolved feelings for her ex-girlfriend Claude. 💔
What really worked for me was the magical realism element. I’m always drawn to ghost stories and lyrical magical realism, and the scenes where Renata encounters the dead were some of the most beautiful parts of the book. 👻✨ There’s something deeply poetic about the way Adler writes grief—as if love itself leaves echoes behind.
But make no mistake: this is a heavy read. Watching the fear, stigma, and cruelty directed toward the LGBTQ+ community during the AIDS epidemic is devastating. There were no effective treatments yet, no quick public health response, and so many people were abandoned simply because of who they loved. Reading this feels especially important now because it reminds us how recent this history truly is. 🕯️🌈
At only 288 pages, this is a relatively quick read, but emotionally it carries a lot of weight. It’s heartbreaking, intimate, and reflective. Definitely not a “feel-good” book, but if you’re in the mood for something thoughtful that may leave you crying quietly at 1 a.m., this is worth picking up. 😭📚
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
⚠️ Trigger warnings for grief, death, homophobia, illness/AIDS, and loss.
If you enjoy historical fiction with magical realism, queer history, literary writing, and emotionally devastating stories about friendship and grief, I think this one is worth your time. 💫
QOTD: What’s a book that emotionally wrecked you but you’re still glad you read?
January 6, 2026
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. Honestly not sure how to feel about this book. I loved the concept and it was honestly pretty heartbreaking but something was just missing for me. This book was definitely more character driven than plot drive but to me the characters weren’t interesting enough to carry a story like this on their own. I liked all the parts about the ghosts and I do think this was a good portrayal of the many facets of grief but i just wanted a little bit more.
April 5, 2026
God this book was good
February 13, 2026
Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Waiting on a Friend is about Renata, a lesbian living in the East Village in 1984 at the height of the AIDs crisis who, as more of her friends die, has the ability to see ghosts. When her best friend Mark dies, Renata assumes she’ll see him again, and the story follows her rage, grief, loss and love as she deals with his loss but in death and after. Alongside this, there’s a mysterious group that are working to capture anything abnormal from the East Village, including trapping ghosts in a prison-like structure, so Renata also has to deal with that and trying to figure out what is going on and how to stop the erasure of her friends and those who have passed but can’t yet move on.
I was very excited to get to read this and ended up enjoying it, it was right up my street. Queer, ghosts, and grief, it’s all a girl needs!
This book is funny and touching, straight to the point but then looks at the idea of erasure and grief in a way that I enjoyed and haven’t read in a while. Renata was both very annoying but lovable, navigating a LOT of baggage and not being able to deal with it very well. I enjoyed the humour but there were also moments where the tone shift threw me and felt odd and misplaced at times.
Overall, I feel like the Remediation part could have been skipped entirely, as it felt like it was something that needed either more pages to explore or to be threaded more throughout. It’s such an interesting device as a way of exploring gentrification and the erasure of abnormalities during the time period, but its conclusion left me wanting more and feeling like I’d rather have not had it at all, which is a shame. The strength of this book for me is in Renata reconciling her grief and losing so many during her life, and the way those who did die whether through AIDS-related complications or drugs were viewed. At its best, this worked as a story of Renata dealing with Mark’s death and so many unanswered questions but realising sometimes we don’t need the answers to move on, and it’s not so best a mixture of plot points that needed more room to work fully, and a larger plot points that didn’t have the payoff this book deserved.
A definite recommend but with the caveat to focus on the grief and Renata. One last thing, I highlighted so many passages throughout this, the writing was both funny but very touching, and the last line in particular sums up the strength of this book perfectly and moved me to tears.
Waiting on a Friend is about Renata, a lesbian living in the East Village in 1984 at the height of the AIDs crisis who, as more of her friends die, has the ability to see ghosts. When her best friend Mark dies, Renata assumes she’ll see him again, and the story follows her rage, grief, loss and love as she deals with his loss but in death and after. Alongside this, there’s a mysterious group that are working to capture anything abnormal from the East Village, including trapping ghosts in a prison-like structure, so Renata also has to deal with that and trying to figure out what is going on and how to stop the erasure of her friends and those who have passed but can’t yet move on.
I was very excited to get to read this and ended up enjoying it, it was right up my street. Queer, ghosts, and grief, it’s all a girl needs!
This book is funny and touching, straight to the point but then looks at the idea of erasure and grief in a way that I enjoyed and haven’t read in a while. Renata was both very annoying but lovable, navigating a LOT of baggage and not being able to deal with it very well. I enjoyed the humour but there were also moments where the tone shift threw me and felt odd and misplaced at times.
Overall, I feel like the Remediation part could have been skipped entirely, as it felt like it was something that needed either more pages to explore or to be threaded more throughout. It’s such an interesting device as a way of exploring gentrification and the erasure of abnormalities during the time period, but its conclusion left me wanting more and feeling like I’d rather have not had it at all, which is a shame. The strength of this book for me is in Renata reconciling her grief and losing so many during her life, and the way those who did die whether through AIDS-related complications or drugs were viewed. At its best, this worked as a story of Renata dealing with Mark’s death and so many unanswered questions but realising sometimes we don’t need the answers to move on, and it’s not so best a mixture of plot points that needed more room to work fully, and a larger plot points that didn’t have the payoff this book deserved.
A definite recommend but with the caveat to focus on the grief and Renata. One last thing, I highlighted so many passages throughout this, the writing was both funny but very touching, and the last line in particular sums up the strength of this book perfectly and moved me to tears.
May 29, 2026
fans of patti smith's "just kids" would adore this. unfortunately i didn't love that book so i didn't love this much but it was still good at times.
the first portion was really gripping in terms of the grief but then it veered towards some inter-city investigative plot and though it didn't last long it felt like it lost focus and there it lost me.
the first portion was really gripping in terms of the grief but then it veered towards some inter-city investigative plot and though it didn't last long it felt like it lost focus and there it lost me.
June 5, 2026
A really heartfelt exploration of grief, the fear of letting go, and Queer identity. Last page made me cry.
June 3, 2026
This novel broke me and then healed me a little bit. I fell in love with K in college. Then when it was finally obvious to me that he was gay he became my best friend. The book reminded me (as if I could ever forget) of NYC, the village, dancing with K and his partner D all night long, over and over. The emergence of the AIDs epidemic. Years later D succumbed to it. Long after K told me he had kidney issues, I don’t know why he felt that he couldn’t tell me that he was living with AIDs. I lived through my memories listening to this book and it was very difficult to revisit. I had a dream several months ago that K knocked on my door and I said ‘Where have you been?’ I was aware in my dream that he was dead but there he was, same as back then.
Read
September 19, 2025*Read for work* It’s a Sin meets Ghostbusters in an alternative queer history set in New York during the AIDS crisis. A poignant look at grief, friendship and queerness.
May 28, 2026
The first sentence just got me. I was hooked from there. Natalie's way of capturing the specific time period of 1984 in the east village and weaving it all together with the main character, Renata's, personal journey was nothing short of mesmerizing. Her sassy observations and anecdotes added so much personality and humor, while still carrying emotional depth and vulnerability underneath. I couldn't put this book down.
May 27, 2026
Fantastic book. More historical fiction about life during the AIDS crisis than a supernatural story about seeing ghosts (although that is very present and handled well). I like stories that feel completely real but with a supernatural twist tossed in, rather than "she can see ghosts, ghosts exist, that's the world this story takes place in." Enjoyed this very much.
May 31, 2026
Gorgeous from start to finish
April 1, 2026
**farewell goodreads - catch me on storygraph @selma_reads**
Don’t really have the words for this book - I’m not usually a book crier but this had me in tears!!
Don’t really have the words for this book - I’m not usually a book crier but this had me in tears!!
June 8, 2026
Poignant story of friendship, grief, and love.
Not like anything else you've read. Beautiful and often funny and sad at once. I was moved that the author was able to capture a time before she was born. Whether to remember or learn, a story set in NYC during the beginning of the aids crisis and the queer community of that time is always important.
The author brings these characters and NYC to life in a well written, historical first novel. The depictions of love and friendship, grief and loss are so real you can imagine yourself there. Renata, the main character, is fierce in her loyalty to her living community and those they’ve lost, the ghosts she sees. Read her story as she quests to stop the erasure of those who sufferered the horrific pain and loneliness of an AIDS diagnosis.
I loved it.
Not like anything else you've read. Beautiful and often funny and sad at once. I was moved that the author was able to capture a time before she was born. Whether to remember or learn, a story set in NYC during the beginning of the aids crisis and the queer community of that time is always important.
The author brings these characters and NYC to life in a well written, historical first novel. The depictions of love and friendship, grief and loss are so real you can imagine yourself there. Renata, the main character, is fierce in her loyalty to her living community and those they’ve lost, the ghosts she sees. Read her story as she quests to stop the erasure of those who sufferered the horrific pain and loneliness of an AIDS diagnosis.
I loved it.
June 11, 2026
Thank you Random House Hogarth for allowing me to read and review Waiting on a Friend on NetGalley.
Published: 05/26/26
Stars: DNF
Sadly I didn't connect with the story or characters. I didn't find any humor in the book.
Best wishes to you.
Published: 05/26/26
Stars: DNF
Sadly I didn't connect with the story or characters. I didn't find any humor in the book.
Best wishes to you.
May 26, 2026
Renata sees ghosts, so she’s hoping to see her best friend Mark, who has died too soon. She doesn’t though, so instead she has to do something much scarier than seeing ghosts: carry on without him.
A book about grief and queer found family and, well, it’s set in 1980s New York so naturally it is also about how Ronald Reagan was an evil loser.
I cried.
A book about grief and queer found family and, well, it’s set in 1980s New York so naturally it is also about how Ronald Reagan was an evil loser.
I cried.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
Actual rating: 2.5
Oh boy. I do feel bad for not liking this, so I will start out by saying that my rating is just my opinion, and others still might like this.
Waiting on a Friend is set in 1984 and follows Renata, a lesbian who can see ghosts—and ghosts are becoming all the more common as people around her begin to die of AIDS. After the death of her best friend Mark, she is extremely troubled when she cannot see his ghost. Around the same time, she discovers an organisation looking to cleanse the supernatural out of Manhattan. She balances a budding romance with a butch nurse with fighting against the forces seeking to destroy her community.
A major problem I had with this novel was its ambition that it failed to live up to. It takes on a lot of subjects, most of them heavy: AIDS, grief, death, to name a few, but fails in the space it has to make a meaningful point with any of them. The anti-ghost organisation, ‘Manhattan Remediations,’ had the potential to be a metaphor for erasure of queer history with regards to AIDS, but nothing within their representation suggested they were that important. The novel couldn’t quite decide what the focus was going to be: was it Renata’s grief over Mark? Renata’s struggle to love after a loss? Renata and Mark’s history together? Renata’s struggle against the ghostbusters? The suffering of Renata’s friend Star? Unfortunately, this jumping around only made every plot point half-baked. To make matters worse, I didn’t love the writing style: it was extremely referential, which I don’t always mind, but if you’re going to describe something as ‘like X movie,’ describe to me HOW it is similar. Assume that your reader doesn’t know what you’re referring to.
On a personal level, I was bothered by the scenes in which Renata and Mark slept together: yes, experimentation is valid, but it added nothing, and having to read two graphic scenes between them was so off-putting. As they were so platonically close, it also added a slightly incestuous weirdness to their sex that even further grossed me out. And lastly, I think Patrick had every right to be alarmed to learn about this: yes, his focus on homosexual ‘purity’ is wrong, but if I found out my partner was living with someone they’d previously slept with, that would be a boundary crossed for sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe the potential was there. I think unfortunately I have read so many excellent AIDS novels that this one just doesn’t feel comparable. It’s a heavy subject, and I admire the author for taking it on, but I think perhaps she wasn’t brave enough in her exploration of grief.
For a lesbian-focused piece of AIDS fiction that I preferred, I recommend Rebecca Brown’s short story “A Good Man.”
Actual rating: 2.5
Oh boy. I do feel bad for not liking this, so I will start out by saying that my rating is just my opinion, and others still might like this.
Waiting on a Friend is set in 1984 and follows Renata, a lesbian who can see ghosts—and ghosts are becoming all the more common as people around her begin to die of AIDS. After the death of her best friend Mark, she is extremely troubled when she cannot see his ghost. Around the same time, she discovers an organisation looking to cleanse the supernatural out of Manhattan. She balances a budding romance with a butch nurse with fighting against the forces seeking to destroy her community.
A major problem I had with this novel was its ambition that it failed to live up to. It takes on a lot of subjects, most of them heavy: AIDS, grief, death, to name a few, but fails in the space it has to make a meaningful point with any of them. The anti-ghost organisation, ‘Manhattan Remediations,’ had the potential to be a metaphor for erasure of queer history with regards to AIDS, but nothing within their representation suggested they were that important. The novel couldn’t quite decide what the focus was going to be: was it Renata’s grief over Mark? Renata’s struggle to love after a loss? Renata and Mark’s history together? Renata’s struggle against the ghostbusters? The suffering of Renata’s friend Star? Unfortunately, this jumping around only made every plot point half-baked. To make matters worse, I didn’t love the writing style: it was extremely referential, which I don’t always mind, but if you’re going to describe something as ‘like X movie,’ describe to me HOW it is similar. Assume that your reader doesn’t know what you’re referring to.
On a personal level, I was bothered by the scenes in which Renata and Mark slept together: yes, experimentation is valid, but it added nothing, and having to read two graphic scenes between them was so off-putting. As they were so platonically close, it also added a slightly incestuous weirdness to their sex that even further grossed me out. And lastly, I think Patrick had every right to be alarmed to learn about this: yes, his focus on homosexual ‘purity’ is wrong, but if I found out my partner was living with someone they’d previously slept with, that would be a boundary crossed for sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe the potential was there. I think unfortunately I have read so many excellent AIDS novels that this one just doesn’t feel comparable. It’s a heavy subject, and I admire the author for taking it on, but I think perhaps she wasn’t brave enough in her exploration of grief.
For a lesbian-focused piece of AIDS fiction that I preferred, I recommend Rebecca Brown’s short story “A Good Man.”
November 26, 2025
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.*
Waiting on a Friend takes place during 1984 in the East Village. Renata is a young queer woman who can see ghosts and she is seeing ghosts constantly as her friends are dying due to AIDS. Her best friend Mark dies of AIDS so she assumes she’ll see his ghost. Renata wants a chance to say goodbye to Mark but his ghost never appears. In the East Village, a police-like-force has been ridding the village of ghosts. At first Renata thinks they are scam artists but soon realises they are really trapping ghosts. She decides to get her friends together to stop these people and release the ghosts and her friends’ memories.
I really liked this book and I found it to be very impactful. I wasn’t born when the AIDS pandemic happened but this book really brought home to me the personal impact the pandemic had. This book shows how much pain this disease caused and the impact it had on queer people. I loved reading about Renata and Mark’s friendship and it broke my heart knowing he died. I feel as if these characters are real people. I found it easy to understand Renata and I just love queer novels like this. I don’t want to label this historical because it’s set in the 80s but it is a queer historical novel and it’s a very good one. I will be recommending this book as I had a great time reading it. 4.5 stars rounded up to a 5.
Waiting on a Friend takes place during 1984 in the East Village. Renata is a young queer woman who can see ghosts and she is seeing ghosts constantly as her friends are dying due to AIDS. Her best friend Mark dies of AIDS so she assumes she’ll see his ghost. Renata wants a chance to say goodbye to Mark but his ghost never appears. In the East Village, a police-like-force has been ridding the village of ghosts. At first Renata thinks they are scam artists but soon realises they are really trapping ghosts. She decides to get her friends together to stop these people and release the ghosts and her friends’ memories.
I really liked this book and I found it to be very impactful. I wasn’t born when the AIDS pandemic happened but this book really brought home to me the personal impact the pandemic had. This book shows how much pain this disease caused and the impact it had on queer people. I loved reading about Renata and Mark’s friendship and it broke my heart knowing he died. I feel as if these characters are real people. I found it easy to understand Renata and I just love queer novels like this. I don’t want to label this historical because it’s set in the 80s but it is a queer historical novel and it’s a very good one. I will be recommending this book as I had a great time reading it. 4.5 stars rounded up to a 5.
Review of advance copy
Editorial Copy received through local book shop.
Waiting on a Friend is a book I have been recommending to everyone around me since I have picked it up, and one I have been continuing to think about whenever I had to put it down.
Striking a balance between humor, deep introspection on friendship and loss, and deeply grounded supernatural/sci-fi elements, Natalie Adler constructs a story alive through its characters, a world that feels authentic through the experiences of those who live in it, and I personally really engaged with her writing style.
Tackling some truly heavy topics with a level of care, levity, and attention to detail that feels very genuine, Waiting on a Friend has left me with questions around the very fine line between Haunting and Grief, and highlights the importance of friendship and connections even in your darker days.
Waiting on a Friend is a book I have been recommending to everyone around me since I have picked it up, and one I have been continuing to think about whenever I had to put it down.
Striking a balance between humor, deep introspection on friendship and loss, and deeply grounded supernatural/sci-fi elements, Natalie Adler constructs a story alive through its characters, a world that feels authentic through the experiences of those who live in it, and I personally really engaged with her writing style.
Tackling some truly heavy topics with a level of care, levity, and attention to detail that feels very genuine, Waiting on a Friend has left me with questions around the very fine line between Haunting and Grief, and highlights the importance of friendship and connections even in your darker days.
June 11, 2026
*3.75*
TW: death, drug abuse, drug use, drug overdose, domestic violence, grief and more.
I absolutely loved the concept of this book. as a lesbian, there is so much important within the community regarding AIDS and how many people were lost tragically due to lack of research and stigmatisation of queer people. reading this book was an emotional rollercoaster- the fear of not understanding this new dangerous thing, the loss and grief of seeing so many friends impacted by it, getting to see the lives of those hurting for who they were not the illness they obtained. I think it was beautiful to see the messy and complicated lives of queer people and the friendships they shared.
I can’t exactly pin point why this book isn’t getting four stars, there was just .. something missing to me? I think the way in which it id written had a fractured sort of timeline and narrative to convey the emotional impact of the main character, but this to me made me lose connection to the hard hitting emotions. I still think it is an amazing read and would recommend to others
TW: death, drug abuse, drug use, drug overdose, domestic violence, grief and more.
I absolutely loved the concept of this book. as a lesbian, there is so much important within the community regarding AIDS and how many people were lost tragically due to lack of research and stigmatisation of queer people. reading this book was an emotional rollercoaster- the fear of not understanding this new dangerous thing, the loss and grief of seeing so many friends impacted by it, getting to see the lives of those hurting for who they were not the illness they obtained. I think it was beautiful to see the messy and complicated lives of queer people and the friendships they shared.
I can’t exactly pin point why this book isn’t getting four stars, there was just .. something missing to me? I think the way in which it id written had a fractured sort of timeline and narrative to convey the emotional impact of the main character, but this to me made me lose connection to the hard hitting emotions. I still think it is an amazing read and would recommend to others
July 25, 2026
astounded by this militant and heartfelt debut that embodies love and grief, mourning and militancy. the ghost story felt utterly believable as renata and her friends strive to live alongside their lost loves that haunt them.
a shockingly well researched and funny novel that pulls off a difficult era of historical fiction, with a wealth of relatively recent and outsized creative work. from poetry project as church, to dykes and gay boys joining as lovers, to tenant lawyer party girls who have a bias to making every problem systemic, i recognized much of my own world here. i want to see the band mucous membrane!
a shockingly well researched and funny novel that pulls off a difficult era of historical fiction, with a wealth of relatively recent and outsized creative work. from poetry project as church, to dykes and gay boys joining as lovers, to tenant lawyer party girls who have a bias to making every problem systemic, i recognized much of my own world here. i want to see the band mucous membrane!
May 17, 2026
really enjoyed this - a unique premise and very moving actually !!
July 19, 2026
every single note of this felt like it was designed for me. such a special book
July 14, 2026
The last third of this book knocked me flat. Sad and weird and beautiful.
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