Five-Star Stranger

Name: Five-Star Stranger
Brand: Simon & Schuster Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Kat Tang
ISBN: 9781797175454

Author: Kat Tang

Narrator: Julian Cihi

Unabridged: 6 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Published: 08/06/2024

Categories: Fiction, Family Life, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An exciting and “inventive” (HuffPost) debut novel about a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app—a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or companion of any kind—who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.

Would you hire someone to be the best man at your wedding? Your stand-in brother? The father to your child?

In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, Five-Star Stranger follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app as he navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients.

But, when an eccentric patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life.

“A sharp page-turner about our culture’s commodification of everything” (Debutiful), Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about isolation in a hyperconnected world, and “what it means to love and be loved” (Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans).

About Kat Tang

Kat Tang is a graduate of Columbia’s MFA program where she taught as an Undergraduate Writing Fellow. Born in China, relocated to Japan, and raised in California, she is fascinated by how we make and fake human connection in a technologically evolving world. Her short stories and graphic narratives have appeared in Electric Literature, The Margins, Pigeon Pages, and elsewhere. She currently lives in New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by OutlawPoet on June 17, 2024

This is not fluffy. I feel like I should say that because the title, cover and description make it seem fluffy and light. Instead, it’s bittersweet and poignant and it made me so sad. I loved our unnamed Stranger and was intrigued by the people he met and situations he was in. But I kept hoping for uni......more

Goodreads review by Val ⚓️ Shameless Handmaiden ⚓️ on September 18, 2024

1.5 - 2 Stars I kept waiting for the point of everything to become clear…but it never did. At least not fully. Instead, the book just felt sad (and not in a good way). The ending, if you can even really call it that, was abrupt and out of the blue. It just left you flailing. I love solidly ambiguous......more

Goodreads review by Katie on August 01, 2024

3.5 stars The premise of this contemporary fiction novel caught my attention as the main character works as a "rental stranger". Basically you can hire one of the people featured on the app and they will play a part. Some examples of that are a wingman at a bar, a date for the opera, a mourner at a f......more

Goodreads review by Jan on April 18, 2025

THIS WAS SO SAD my heart hurt afterwards. TW for mommy AND daddy issues 🥲......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on October 06, 2024

3.5 stars This was such a unique premise. I was enthralled with getting to know the quirky main character and his job, something I’d not heard of but can definitely understand. The narrator, “Stranger,” has a host of jobs, and one of them, playing father to a young girl, has been a long term one; so......more

Quotes

"Cihi is a marvel, just as chameleonic as his protagonist, as he assumes and discards roles, personalities, and expectations with effortless ease. He’s particularly poignant as precocious Lily with all her tween attitude, balancing between adoring attachment and new disdain for her dad. With empathic ease, Cihi enhances Tang’s already stellar debut novel with all-star success."

"Julian Cihi gives a convincing and moving portrayal of a young man who has many identities—except his own. Cihi’s range of voices and accents illuminates the diverse roles he adopts for clients who have hired him through the Rental Stranger app. While Cihi’s even tone brings out the unnamed protagonist’s professional attitude towards his work, his growing affinity for his recurring role as father to a young girl named Lily is revealed through beautifully restrained yet heartfelt enthusiasm. The quiet sensitivity of Cihi’s performance highlights the yearning for connection in a disconnected world and makes for a captivating listen."