FIVE-STAR STRANGER, a provocative novel centered on the gig economy, follows the exploits of New York’s top performer on the Rental Stranger app, where users can hire a fake fiancé, a wingman or an extra mourner for a funeral. Known only as Stranger, the narrator likes to maintain a professional distance from his clients and, it becomes apparent, from his own demons.

"Kat Tang has created an interesting premise for her debut novel that doesn’t quite deliver. However, given her impressive writing skills, that very well may change in future efforts."

As Stranger morphs seamlessly from one character to another, changing wigs, clothes and personalities based on his clients’ needs, he has little time for a personal life, which suits him just fine. But a long-term (and far-fetched) gig as an itinerant father to a perceptive nine-year-old compels him to rethink his priorities, especially his fear of attachment.

The reason for that aloofness becomes painfully clear over the second half of the book, where Kat Tang maneuvers her protagonist and his clients into position for an unlikely denouement involving an exposé that one renter threatens. Though this doesn’t happen in quite the way Stranger fears, it forces him to come to terms with the tradeoffs he has made to keep control over his carefully choreographed world.

While Tang explores Stranger’s loneliness, guilt and unresolved anger towards (who else?) his mother, she isn’t able to adequately demonstrate --- rather than merely explicate --- why he behaves the way he does. And, curiously, some of the other themes that might have been explored in a book about renting pretend friends, parents and children --- the emphasis on appearances, the belief that friends and family can be bought or rented on an hourly basis --- never get developed.

Kat Tang has created an interesting premise for her debut novel that doesn’t quite deliver. However, given her impressive writing skills, that very well may change in future efforts.