When you say you want to do nothing and literally make a job out of it - A very interesting biography/memoir about finding the beauty of the simplicity of life and simple human connection. To see the author’s rise in popularity in his services was very interesting and showed how people really appreciate just having someone there for them for the most simplest of moments. It’s very heartwarming to read but can be a bit disorganized at times but understandably so since the author did mention that they didn’t know how to write a biography so they decided asking questions and telling his story that way would be the best option. Overall, I would recommend this book as a nice light but also philosophical and heart warming read.

"Rental Person Who Does Nothing" is an interesting summary of a personal project of Shoji Morimoto to do nothing and yet apparently doing a lot in the process. Composed of many clients' stories, this book shines a light not only onto the experience of solitude in Japanese society, but onto the human condition in general--how accountability of simply having someone by one's side, increases the overall confidence to do things, like eating in public or completing various tasks.

However, after a while, "Rental Person..." became repetitive and a bit dubious, considering author's motivations.

A quick, quirky read but it was rather aimless. I think that not knowing nuances about Japanese culture that would lead to people asking for the services of the 'Rental Person' was a disadvantage.

Shoji Morimoto has cracked the golden egg. He has a life that is interesting and unique, and if his memoir he takes us along for some of that journey. It's hard to imagine what a rental person might do, and you will be surprised by some the requests Morimoto receives, yet they all seem to make sense. The interspersion of reflection along with anecdotes made this book a combination of story-telling and introspection. Morimoto doesn't just tell us what he does, but suggests why people ask what they do and how he feels he may have helped his clients. A lovely journey.

Becoming disillusioned with the world of conventional work due to being constantly told by his boss that he contributed nothing to the company, Shoji Morimato decided to try a new way of life – doing nothing. He started to rent himself out – to do nothing. Perhaps that could be just as productive as regular work. And so it turned out. Clients hire him to do nothing – except be there, listen, accompany them to places or wait for them. He offers a non-judgemental and safe companionship. At first he didn’t even charge for his “services” except for expenses but now he does charge a fee, and he makes royalties from the books he has published about his rental business. I found this a quite fascinating memoir. On one level it’s a quirky chronicle of some of his encounters with his clients, but there’s a serious underside to it all, a philosophy about what it means to do “nothing”, simply to be, to simply be present in an increasingly goal-orientated society, and about how sometimes a stranger can be just the person someone needs – no strings attached. Entertaining and thought-provoking.

This year's most atypical read is Rental Person Who Does Nothing. It skillfully portrays how a person can appear to do nothing yet still have a positive impact on those around them. It shines a light on the essence of humanity and how the people in our lives can influence us.

A unique memoir about a man who rents his services of 'doing nothing' and shares his experience online. It was a refreshing and insightful read, and made me question more about my own purpose and desire to work. A great short book that I would recommend.

The title and cover of the book caught my attention and as someone who knew nothing about Rental Person, it was fun to discover what it meant and the ways people use him in this short memoir.

Did find that the book didn’t hold my attention like I hoped it would and in some ways felt a little repetitive and boring.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a lovely, intriguing memoir about a man who voluntarily spends his time doing nothing, with strangers, in small but often meaningful exchanges.

This is a concept that I find extremely difficult to understand or relate to, but Rental Person has no desire to fill his days with menial interactions, and is perfectly content to spend his days just existing, being a companion to people in need of one, and offering the most basic of small talk. Though unnerving, it is a fascinating concept and extremely interesting to read about the day-to-day life of this man.

though at times I felt this read like a magazine article more than a memoir, it was a brief and engrossing read and i will definitely be recommending this to people!

If you need someone just to be there with you who isn't a friend or a relative the it's best to message Rental Person on Twitter. If he accepts, he will only charge for food and travel expenses, and in return he will do nothing, apart from just be.

Rental Person is also a family man with a wife and child. Sick and tired of working for others who would only taunt him he decided to quit. He then stumbled across a blog his wife read in it was written about the analogy of humans having value. This sparked an idea. He would provide his services to others in need. Say you're an introvert and would like to go out to a restaurant but you're nervous and would like someone to go with you but you wouldn't want to bother friends or relatives, then Rental Person would be ideal for this scenario. He would show up at the given time and place and give you company, although conversation would be basic as to him diving into a full blown conversation is doing something and that goes against doing nothing. The book is filled with loads of examples of people making requests, if he accepts and how he feels during and after the task is complete.

My first ever memoir. Not too sure what to make of it. I found the concept rather bizarre yet unique, the man in question i personally found to be quite smart, yet strange. Purely because of the cultural differences I perhaps couldn't connect with the entire read and his story, but I did find everything fascinating. To a certain extent I found it enduring that someone could conjure such a concept and make it work. Some parts did seem a little dragged and repetitive, but not enough to throw me off. I enjoyed his thoughts on friendship and human connection, would have liked to know more about his life.

Hitting 160 pages proved to be a quick read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital ARC.

📝-⭐⭐⭐1/2

Happy Reading! xx

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A glorious, relatable book that covers so much in such a short number of pages and yet everything feels like it was covered perfectly. I really enjoyed this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review.

One of the most unconventional reads you will find this year. Rental Person Who Does Nothing manages to show the many ways in which a person truly does nothing, yet is beneficial to those around them. It captures the very essence of humanity and how the people in our lives may impact us along the way.

Thank you NetGalley and Picador for providing me with a free advanced copy!

4.0

I actually found myself enjoying this memoir greatly, and I found it endearing. The tone is completely detached from emotion, logic, and reasoning, and is simply just a book about Rental Person who really does nothing, and it fits perfectly. Don't take this book too seriously, and I'm scared that people will because this book is meant to be light-hearted and funny and just a little insight into Rental Person's job. I really did like how honest they were, they even admitted that someone else wrote this book and that they hoped to make money from the royalties so that they don't have to work a corporate job.

It was by all means brutally honest about life, relationships particularly friendships, and the human need for connection. And this being set in Japan makes a lot of sense, there is a culture of chronic loneliness there that a Rental Person would of course be a huge hit. I liked the detached tone of the narrator, and I enjoyed his musings about his life, friendships, relationship, and the job itself. I also liked how he views people, I can't really explain it but he doesn't see them as other human beings, but just beings that exist if that makes sense.

Some thing I didn't like I guess was that I didn't know where one story ended and another finished. It all blurred into one. I think that was deliberate, if so, that's good, they executed it well but I'm not too sure I can vibe with it.

Other than that, it was a good book! I enjoyed it, and it would make a good palate cleanser or a book that you read to get back into reading.

This is probably the most "Japanese" book I have ever read in my reading career. Morimoto decides to rent himself out as a company person who doesn't do anything, and already that might have given me an idea of what to expect, but I still would never have been ready enough to read the myriad of things others asked him to do with them.
As the old cynical person that I am, the fact that they asked him to stay and watch while they had sex (which he refused) did not surprise me at all, while among the things that I really would not have imagined is that of being watched while working or while putting one's house in order after months, and these are just two examples among many.
More than a book, an anthropological essay on current life in Japan, very smooth and enjoyable to read, however unimaginable.

Questo é probabilmente il libro piú "giapponese" che io abbia mai letto nella mia carriera di lettrice. Morimoto decide di affittarsi come persona di compagnia che non fa niente, e giá questo avrebbe potuto darmi un'idea di quello che mi aspettava, ma non sarei mai comunque stata abbastanza pronta per leggere la miriade di cose che gli altri gli hanno chiesto di fare con loro.
Da vecchia persona cinica quale sono, il fatto che gli abbiano chiesto di restare a guardare mentre facevano sesso (cosa che ha rifiutato) non mi ha per niente sorpreso, mentre tra le cose che proprio non mi sarei immaginata é quella di essere guardati mentre si lavora o mentre si mette in ordine dopo mesi la propria casa, e questi sono solo due esempi tra i tanti.
PIú che un libro, un saggio antropologico sull'attuale vita in Giappone, molto scorrevole e piacevole da leggere, per quanto inimmaginabile.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

I hadn't heard of the Twitter sensation Shoji Morimoto before this book, so I was intrigued when I started reading. The writing is almost stream-of-consciousness, which is what was intended, I suppose, since the book is basically Morimoto answering questions put to him by the actual writer of the book. The accounts of the various clients were interesting no doubt, however, it was particularly interesting to read about Morimoto's various thought processes - why he started this, how he felt during it, what he considers as the parameters of the 'service' he provides, and most of all, his desire to not be labelled or perceived in one particular way.

Even the book seems to uphold that last point. After reading the book, I don't have a definitive image of the Rental Person Who Does Nothing (despite the photos in the book), and I think that is what Morimoto would have wanted as well. After all, if the book offered a definitive portrait of him, he would go out of his way then to be everything but that.

The idea of a rental person is very powerful, at least for me, because I immediately connected it to 'body doubling', which is something I do in order to be more productive. Body doubling essentially refers to having another person around while you do some task so that you have some sort of accountability and an external motivator. Of course, that is not exactly what Morimoto offers as a rental person who does nothing, but in some of his client's cases, you can clearly see that that is what they got out of the service. Which could explain why he became extremely popular and was sought out so often for seemingly mundane tasks.

A solid three star read, and the fourth is for a unique concept.

I was really torn about this one. The idea of it had me exited to start reading immediately, but after the first few pages I was almost already tired of it. It felt a little repetitive and even though I'm not supposed to like Rental Person after reading it, I wasn't expecting to dislike him a little for the way he retold his many appointments and about what he did and didn't receive in return. It felt more like a publicity stunt than the urge to publish a book about his uncommon life. On the other hand I really enjoyed the way it was translated. Compared to many Japanese translations. I felt it really delivered the feeling of the language itself - in the end it's that what made me want to keep coming back and picking up the book again.

Rental Person Who Does Nothing is not your typical memoir... It has an interesting premise, where a man does all kinds of things for people.

It is a very light and quick read. However, I didn't really enjoy the structure of this book. For me, it felt not well connected and sometimes too repetitive. Maybe an interview format would have been better.

The person himself does not even write it but by someone else. I don't know, I feel there is something missing on this one but it was an ok read.

Intrigued by the premise, I requested this book on Netgalley and I am glad I did though I feel somthing is missing from this.

As someone whose a bit of a procrastinator, having someone just hanging around you to encourage you to do things is a really genius idea, and Shoji Morimoto is that guy, you can ask him to do nothing while you do something and he has some interesting stories to tell about what he does with his time during this book. If anything this book is a little insight into human nature and so that to me is interesting.

I just feel the structure and connection between stories and perspectives could have been more thought out and better built here with a way of creating chapters of things that connected up whereas here it feels a little all over the place and a little disconnected which is a shame as I feel like there are moments of gold among the pyrite.

A really interesting book and makes me wonder if in any other culture this was possible, I can't imagine it in the UK for example, but happy to volunteer if anyone needs me! (Haha)

I didn’t enjoy this book; it felt like it should’ve been an interview in readers digest rather than extended into a full book. The descriptions of what he did and what he thought about it get old quick, and I found the whole malaise of the book depressing

First of all, what a great, catchy title! It was an interesting read about someone who had a very unique job - doing nothing for other people who hire him to be just there. The writing was easy to read, so I finished this in two days. There are good anecdotes and insights into strangers’ life. A sharp observation on Japanese society. The author seems to write this book to encourage all Japanese people to live more freely. I liked the message. The author’s views on human relationships are a bit too dry for my taste. And I feel like he had a conclusion from the start and just tried to come up with logics that suit him. So 3 stars from me. But if you are looking for a nice, light memoir, this is great!