
Five-Star Stranger
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Julian Cihi
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By:
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Kat Tang
About this listen
In Kat Tang’s exciting and resonant debut, a “Rental Stranger”—a companion hired under various guises—walks the line between personal and professional in surprising new ways.
Would you hire someone to be the best man at your wedding? Your stand-in brother? Your husband?
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 fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients.
But, when a nosy 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.
Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about the commodification of relationships in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. This is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.
©2024 Kat Tang (P)2024 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The Same Bright Stars
- A Novel
- By: Ethan Joella
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Three generations of Schmidts have run their family’s beachfront restaurant and Jack has been at the helm since the death of his father. Jack puts the demands of the restaurant above all else, with a string of failed relationships, no hobbies, and no days off as proof of his commitment to the place. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the beach, or even enjoyed a moment to himself. Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been gradually snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast and are pursuing Jack with a very generous offer to take Schmidt’s off his hands.
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F word use
- By S Challis on 07-29-24
By: Ethan Joella
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Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant
- How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me About the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America
- By: Stephanie Kiser
- Narrated by: Stephanie Kiser
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a glorified personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
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Loved it!
- By David Randt on 10-18-24
By: Stephanie Kiser
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Like Mother, Like Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Kimberly McCreight
- Narrated by: Olivia Campbell, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.
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Uneven narration - skip this one
- By motoJill on 09-10-24
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Four Weekends and a Funeral
- By: Ellie Palmer
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to discover that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family. Little did she know this would mean packing up Sam's apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it'll only take four weekends . . . But Adam doesn’t want Alison anywhere near him. Forced to spend long hours with the grump and his monosyllabic demeanor, Alison decides to put her people-pleasing abilities to the test.
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The wat Elie Palmer describes a woman's relationship to her vody during health changes.
- By Althea Jane on 02-13-25
By: Ellie Palmer
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Hum
- By: Helen Phillips
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family’s addiction to their devices, May splurges on passes for her family to spend three nights respite in the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals still thrive.
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Why Literary "Speculative Fiction" Doesn't Work
- By NMwritergal on 08-06-24
By: Helen Phillips
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The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
- A Novel
- By: Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.
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Boring characters
- By Elisa Savva on 10-27-24
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The Same Bright Stars
- A Novel
- By: Ethan Joella
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three generations of Schmidts have run their family’s beachfront restaurant and Jack has been at the helm since the death of his father. Jack puts the demands of the restaurant above all else, with a string of failed relationships, no hobbies, and no days off as proof of his commitment to the place. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the beach, or even enjoyed a moment to himself. Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been gradually snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast and are pursuing Jack with a very generous offer to take Schmidt’s off his hands.
-
-
F word use
- By S Challis on 07-29-24
By: Ethan Joella
-
Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant
- How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me About the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America
- By: Stephanie Kiser
- Narrated by: Stephanie Kiser
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a glorified personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
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Loved it!
- By David Randt on 10-18-24
By: Stephanie Kiser
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Like Mother, Like Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Kimberly McCreight
- Narrated by: Olivia Campbell, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.
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Uneven narration - skip this one
- By motoJill on 09-10-24
-
Four Weekends and a Funeral
- By: Ellie Palmer
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to discover that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family. Little did she know this would mean packing up Sam's apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it'll only take four weekends . . . But Adam doesn’t want Alison anywhere near him. Forced to spend long hours with the grump and his monosyllabic demeanor, Alison decides to put her people-pleasing abilities to the test.
-
-
The wat Elie Palmer describes a woman's relationship to her vody during health changes.
- By Althea Jane on 02-13-25
By: Ellie Palmer
-
Hum
- By: Helen Phillips
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family’s addiction to their devices, May splurges on passes for her family to spend three nights respite in the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals still thrive.
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-
Why Literary "Speculative Fiction" Doesn't Work
- By NMwritergal on 08-06-24
By: Helen Phillips
-
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
- A Novel
- By: Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.
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Boring characters
- By Elisa Savva on 10-27-24
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I Hope This Finds You Well
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Sue
- Narrated by: Nasim Pedrad
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.
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I Hope You Listen to This Book
- By Amazon Customer on 11-24-24
By: Natalie Sue
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All the Water in the World
- A Novel
- By: Eiren Caffall
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north.
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A future world
- By AprilG on 01-24-25
By: Eiren Caffall
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Madwoman
- By: Chelsea Bieker
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation. But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun.
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Relevent
- By Medusa on 10-10-24
By: Chelsea Bieker
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I Might Be in Trouble
- By: Daniel Aleman
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book—a total flop—all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers, the entire publishing world…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.
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What a dumpster fire! (Grab some marshmallows, y’all…we’re makin’ S’Mores!)
- By Hans Christian Branderson on 12-12-24
By: Daniel Aleman
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The Fox Wife
- A Novel
- By: Yangsze Choo
- Narrated by: Yangsze Choo
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.
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Brilliant storyteller!
- By BAE on 02-16-24
By: Yangsze Choo
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Homeseeking
- By: Karissa Chen
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin, Kenneth Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.
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What a beautiful story!
- By Jennifer Davis on 01-25-25
By: Karissa Chen
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A Talent for Murder
- A Novel
- By: Peter Swanson
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Stephen Graybill, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Martha Ratliff conceded long ago that she’d likely spend her life alone. She was fine with it, happy with her solo existence, stimulated by her work as a librarian in Maine. But then she met Alan, a charming and sweet-natured salesman whose job took him on the road for half the year. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, even though he still felt a little bit like a stranger.
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Easy read,
- By Charles Johnson on 08-02-24
By: Peter Swanson
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The Mighty Red
- A Novel
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his. Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker. Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels.
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Read this book
- By Jessica on 11-01-24
By: Louise Erdrich
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Big Little Lies
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.
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Great story. Genius writing
- By David Shear on 08-01-14
By: Liane Moriarty
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Margo's Got Money Troubles
- A Novel
- By: Rufi Thorpe
- Narrated by: Elle Fanning
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
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I love Margo’s brain and Elle’s voice 👏🏻💕
- By Jessica Larson on 08-19-24
By: Rufi Thorpe
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Intermezzo
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret.
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I felt a lot of empathy towards the excellently developed characters.
- By Hanoverian girl on 09-29-24
By: Sally Rooney
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The Vanishing Half
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.
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Soap opera material
- By Sheila S on 06-06-20
By: Brit Bennett
What listeners say about Five-Star Stranger
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- Giulia
- 10-10-24
Heartbreaking and sweet
How come I am crying and happy at this? I don’t understand, and this whole crying thing is not cool.
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Overall
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- C. Dad
- 09-06-24
Had good parts that kept me engaged.
the story took an unexpected turn in the end (not in a good way to me). Overall it was ok.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Ashley
- 10-14-24
Interesting!
I loved the characters, and I hated them. I didn’t know what the book was about and I thought the storyline was fun.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Michael
- 12-25-24
Interesting and Thoughtful
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.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Allison Cornett
- 08-20-24
Novel idea.
The mom, smoking, drinking, working at a department store and able to afford rent and a rental person at $150 per hour? Didn’t like ending.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Melissa Morris
- 08-27-24
Different
Seemed like it had a very abrupt, unresolved ending. I did not care for it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-23-24
I don't know
After listening this story I don't know how I feel. I have more questions than answers. It was a quick and easy listen 🎧 I enjoyed the narrator
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