GIG

In the modern economy, your worth isn't measured by a salary-it's rated by strangers. What happens when five stars are the price of survival?

Meet Mark Hennesy. At forty-five, he was a respected management consultant with a corner office. Today, he's a 4.89. That's his rating. To put food on the table and keep a roof over his family's head, Mark is juggling a desperate trifecta: Uber driver by morning, TaskRabbit handyman by afternoon, and "Alexander Consulting"-his fragile solo venture-by night. His life has become a relentless performance, a high-wire act where every passenger, every client, holds the power to shape his future with a simple tap on a screen.

★★★★★ - "Professional and punctual! Great conversation." (For a polished performance masking sheer exhaustion.) ★★★★★ - "Assembled a complicated dresser in record time!"(Where efficiency is born of panic.) ★☆☆☆☆ - "Unprofessional and rude."(The devastating cost of one human moment of frustration.)

Mark is chasing five-star reviews to keep his family afloat. But with every five-star rating from a stranger, he's edging closer to a one-star life at home. He's missing his daughter's soccer games, lying to his wife about their finances, and feeling the last fragments of his identity erode in a storm of algorithmic demands and constant anxiety.

Gig is a riveting, heart-wrenching, and profoundly urgent novel that holds a mirror to our times. It's a story about the terrifying fragility of the American dream in the age of the gig economy, the erosion of stable work, and the silent struggle of millions living paycheck-to-paycheck, five-star review by five-star review. But it's also a story of resilience, a desperate search for dignity, and the rediscovery of what truly matters when the metrics of success are stripped away.

If you've ever felt the pressure to perform, feared the precariousness of your job, or wondered about the human cost of our on-demand world, this is the novel you need to read. A stunning, unforgettable story that will change the way you see the world-and the five-star reviews that shape it.