Rental House Audiobook By Weike Wang cover art

Rental House

A Novel

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Rental House

By: Weike Wang
Narrated by: Jen Zhao
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About this listen

DAKOTA JOHNSON’S TEATIME PICTURES DECEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK

ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE” 2024

“One of the most nuanced, astute critiques of America now I’ve read in years. And it’s also frequently hilarious.”—Los Angeles Times

“A funny, perceptive look at what it means to defy societal expectations…timeless.”—Washington Post

“[For] basically anyone who is breathing,
Rental House is a must-read."—San Francisco Chronicle

“Sharp, insightful, occasionally heartbreaking, and incredibly relatable.”—Gabrielle Zevin, author of
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“For anyone who’s experienced demanding parents, misunderstanding in-laws, a vacation-gone-wrong, or mid-life questions about how to reconcile your own personality liabilities with those of the person you love most.”—Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.

©2024 Weike Wang (P)2024 Penguin Audio
Asian American Family Life Marriage Witty Funny
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Critic reviews

“One of the most nuanced, astute critiques of America now I’ve read in years. And it’s also frequently hilarious...[Wang] is at her most poignant and penetrating. She’s cast her lens, with immense empathy, on how divisiveness has hardened our desolation and made us more desirous than ever of a connection we rarely feel. She’s done what only great fiction writers can do."—Los Angeles Times

“Wang paints an elegantly off-kilter portrait of partnership and its isolations, and of the ungainly, imperfect intimacy of family.”The New York Times

"Blazingly insightful, Weike Wang’s Rental House is a pitch-perfect send-up of all the ways we humans can misunderstand or unintentionally (sometimes intentionally) wound our loved ones and drive each other crazy...[For] basically anyone who is breathing, Rental House is a must-read."San Francisco Chronicle

What listeners say about Rental House

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing

At times humorous, but overall boring. Disappointing, as I was looking forward to this release

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Waste of time

Didn’t like any of the characters
Depressing and mediocre - don’t bother to read this despite its appearance of best of 2024 lists

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Weike Wang’s Best Yet

I love this author but I always long for more realistic interiority from her characters, especially in the novels. This one grants my wish.

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