Five-Star Stranger Audiobook By Kat Tang cover art

Five-Star Stranger

A Novel

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Five-Star Stranger

By: Kat Tang
Narrated by: Julian Cihi
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.99

Buy for $14.99

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). Literary Fiction Psychological Family Life Genre Fiction United States World Literature

Critic reviews

"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." (Terry Hong)
"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."
All stars
Most relevant
the story took an unexpected turn in the end (not in a good way to me). Overall it was ok.

Had good parts that kept me engaged.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
How come I am crying and happy at this? I don’t understand, and this whole crying thing is not cool.

Heartbreaking and sweet

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
ending was tragic and Lily 's mother was mostly to blame as she instigated the situation

dialog

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the characters, and I hated them. I didn’t know what the book was about and I thought the storyline was fun.

Interesting!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed this book. The characters, even with short introductions, were not one dimensional. The storyline invites the lister to think differently about decisions and what is viewed as standard. It was the right length and I still wanted more.

Interesting and Thoughtful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews