FiveStar Stranger Author:Kat Tang 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--a place where users can hire a pretend fiance, wingman, or extra mourner for a funeral.&... more »nbsp; Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, carefully maintaining a professional distance from his clients.
But when a nosy patron threatens to up-end his long-term role as a father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. He must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of loss that has shaped his life.
Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid debut novel about the commodification of relations in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. It is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.« less