My first book by this author and I will definitely read more!

Sadie is a struggling artist, struggling financially and also seemingly personally because she isn't where she wants to be regarding her "success." On the brink of what could be a career breakthrough, Sadie has an accident that leads to her needing a minor brain surgery. Unfortunately her healing leads to a complication that completely changes how she "sees" the world. This leads to 6 weeks of struggle bus-sing for Sadie where she has to re-evaluate her perception, her interactions, and ultimately where her life is heading.

Sadie wasn't my favorite character but I could sympathize with her. Having suffered a major trauma during her formative teen years, her life has been shaped by her perceptions and interactions since then. When her senses get jumbled she slowly learns to realize even when she could "see" she wasn't always aware. Joe was a welcome bit of normalcy, always willing to be "helpful" and offering a bit of comedic relief as Sadie stumbles along. Some of the plot points were a little goofy but I appreciate the authors positive and anticipatory writing style to craft a "feel good" read. The story overall was interesting, shining light on a condition that many won't be aware of, while offering tidbits of wisdom through Sadie's therapy interactions with her doctor. I enjoyed it and will definitely check out this author's catalog.

Katherine Center possesses exceptional skills in crafting distinctive and heartwarming narratives. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading her previous works, you're in for a delightful surprise. And if you've already experienced and adored her books, much like myself, you'll undoubtedly fall head over heels for Sadie and the captivating cast of characters in this enchanting story!

• Sadie, an aspiring artist who specializes in portrait painting, was on the brink of a breakthrough in a prestigious competition when an accident changed everything, requiring brain surgery and then a diagnosis of prosopagnosia—a neurological condition that impairs the ability to recognize faces. Each encounter becomes a fresh introduction for Sadie.
• Rather than surrendering to despair, Sadie has a mere six weeks to devise a way to create a portrait without relying on sight, all in preparation for the life-changing competition. I was particularly captivated by the diverse methods Sadie explored in her quest. The anticipation was electric as she ultimately decided to create a portrait through touch alone—astonishing! Enter Joe, Sadie's charming neighbor and secret crush, who agrees to be her model. The scenes between them were so engrossing that I couldn't help but envision this story on the silver screen. It would undoubtedly be a resounding success!
• In the wake of this life-altering event, Sadie grapples with the challenges of adapting to her new reality. She must contend with an evil step-sister, a distant father, a somewhat eccentric stepmother, an ailing dog, and two new romantic interests. None of her potential love interests are aware of her recent diagnosis, making it fascinating to witness Sadie's reliance on her other senses to distinguish between individuals. I found myself wholly invested in Sadie's journey as she unraveled her true identity and discovered her desires in the face of life's unexpected hurdles. The narrative prompted me to pause several times, reflecting on how life might be if I or someone I cared about were diagnosed with such a disorder.
• This book is more than a romance; it is an inspiring, uplifting, heartwarming, and occasionally humorous tale. I truly adored the unique storyline and Center's adeptness in crafting unforgettable and relatable characters whom you'll cheer for from the opening page to the very last.
• Don’t forget to listen/read the Author’s Notes at the end. Katherine Center perfectly describes the importance of the romance genre.
• I had the pleasure of alternating between reading and listening to the audiobook and I highly recommend the audiobook if you have the option. Patti Murin @pattimurin has narrated some of my favorite books and she is a joy to listen to! She always makes it easy to distinguish between the different characters with her many inflections and keeps the pace of the story moving.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is the second novel by Katherine Center that I've read and can now safely say that her books are great beach reads with that 'something different' mixed into it. In "Hello Stranger", the female protagonist, Sadie, is a portrait artist who has the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her work but has an accident a couple of weeks before the event after which she wakes up from surgery with acquired face blindness. A portrait artist who can't see the faces she needs to paint? What a pickle!

A very interesting take on how the main character rolls with the punches and learns to accept help after going her whole life being fiercely self-sufficient. Not only does the face blindness make it difficult to paint, it makes it quite hard to date new people too with our main character encountering two new men in her life. I especially enjoyed the book's final twist! The author's treatment and development of her main character Sadie, was also very well done.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center just jumped into my top five books I’ve read this year. This story was so beautiful and I felt every emotion that was depicted throughout. Sadie’s character was one of a kind and I found myself relating to her overthinking and insecurities many times. This love story is one for the ages and not one that I will soon forget. If you want a book that has a unique plot and is sure to have your emotions swirling, pick this one up when it comes out!

This was a delightful read about a heroine named Sadie who is a portrait artist. She's on the cusp of her big break being selected as a finalist for an art show when disaster strikes and she ends up in the hospital struggling with face blindness. The story follows Sadie through her journey to accept her current reality while also watching her come to terms with some family challenging dynamics from her past. The first half of the book was a bit slow for me, but really picked up in the second half.

The author did a great job weaving this story and creating some mystery, romance, and fun throughout. She also brought to light some very real concepts of confirmation bias and accepting help when needed in a fun and meaningful way. This was a fun read.

Thank you to Katherine Center, Netgalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC; all opinions contained here are my own.

This was a lot of fun! It wasn't my favorite of Katherine Center's, I think mostly because a lot of it wasn't super focused on the romance aspect of the story but instead on the struggles that Sadie went through after the accident. It also felt like the pacing was almost off a little bit- it felt like the plot would start to progress a little bit but then go off on a tangent about one of the side characters that didn't feel like it fit in with what was happening with the story. I did really enjoy the way it all came together in the end, and I liked the way that the romance did tie together in the end, but it just wasn't quite my favorite of hers.

2.5 - “I just want you to know, that more than anything…I hope you find peace.”

Sadie is celebrating the the biggest achievement of her professional life when she’s suddenly in the hospital with hopefully temporary face blindness. Every face now looks jumbled and blurry, as a portrait artist, it’s less than ideal. Struggling to cope, she finds herself in a love triangle while dealing with her childhood nemesis.

I had such a hard time with this book. Sadie is insufferable. She’s nearly thirty and acts like a teenager, and that was so difficult for me. She spends so much time feeling sorry for herself that it doesn’t feel like she deals with her new face blindness that she doesn’t learn to cope. She doesn’t want to tell anyone, and if she did, it would literally ruin the entire plot. She spends so much time feeling sorry for herself when she could be pursuing a romantic relationship and learn to cope in a healthier way with her condition.

The premise of the book is interesting and really has so much potential, but it never seems to come together. Sadie is too self-centered. The love triangle is honestly cringey and I knew what was going on immediately. I also found it incredibly hard to believe that she didn’t realize that they’re the same man. At least by the voice she should have known. It’s also incredibly icky that she talks about planning a wedding right after she meets Joe. It makes her sound incredibly juvenile and it was hard to empathize with her. Because it feels forced, the story feels like it drags and everything is filler. It never fully picks up steam to the point where I needed to keep going.

The supporting characters don’t feel developed and Sadie’s issues with her father never feel fully explored. It’s an aside that is integral to her character, but doesn’t feel substantial. Parker is actually a great villain and the Kim’s were really fun. The book just doesn’t feel realistic and the overall plot feels jumbled. A lot of interactions and conflicts feel unnatural and uncomfortable. It’s disappointing because overall Katherine Center is a great author.

Mein Leseerlebnis

Da mir der Liebesroman “The Bodyguard” von der Autorin gut gefallen hat, war ich sehr gespannt auf ihr neues Buch. Ich habe eine weitere schöne Romance mit starken Hauptcharakteren erwartet. Bekommen habe ich das leider nicht.

Blicke ich auf mein Leserlebnis mit “Hello Stranger” zurück, so fand ich die Charaktere teils zu flach. Ein Nebencharakter wurde so eindimensional dargestellt, dass es beim Lesen fast schon weh tat. Und auch Sadie, die Heldin der Geschichte, wirkte auch mich teils blass und ihre Gedankengänge zu absurd, um sie wirklich ernst nehmen zu können.

Zu vieles in der Geschichte wirkte zudem extrem konstruiert und vorhersehbar. Zu vieles machte außerdem keinen Sinn, teils musste ich beim Lesen den Kopf schütteln.

Immerhin war der Schreibstil angenehm und einnehmend. Das war auch der primäre Grund, warum ich das Buch nicht abgebrochen, sondern beendet habe. Ich habe zusätzlich noch auf ein paar Überraschungen in der Geschichte gehofft, dazu kam es aber nicht.

Alles in allem konnte mich der Liebesroman leider weder gut unterhalten noch überzeugen.

🖤🖤1/2

Für wen?

Falls euch die Grundidee der Geschichte anspricht, könnte das Buch einen Versuch wert sein. Es hilft beim Lesen nicht alle Details der Geschichte zu ernst zu nehmen. ;)

i am obsessed with katherine center. this was the pull at my heart, make me cry, make me fall in love with everyone type of romance that I needed. beautiful. everything she writes is beautiful. please go read this book.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy. all thoughts are my own.

A Katherine Center book is always likely to be amazing and her newest, releasing July 11, does not disappoint! This perfect dose of sunshine is just what I needed and I loved it! When a struggling artist has an unexpected health episode, acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia or face blindness, her life is changed in an instant. She is piecing her life back together and coming to terms with her past while maybe falling in love? I love a book where I learn something, feel something, and want to share it with others and this is that book!

This book is for you if you like Colleen Hoover novels, but prefer actually good writing. I thought while the plot was a bit predictable and corny, the writing itself and details of the story itself made this un-put-downable for me. Perfect blend of funny, self aware, and romance

This was so good! I thought the premise was unique, and the story had so many funny parts – I was laughing out loud multiple times. It’s about not giving up when things get tough and learning to still find things to enjoy things in life no matter what is thrown your way.

This follows Sadie, who finds out early on that she needs brain surgery, and after the surgery, she learns that she is having problems with the part of her brain that recognizes faces. I really enjoyed all the characters and what they brought to the story. Sadie was fun to follow. Her stepsister was a great villain character, and I thought the entire plot line with Sadie’s family was very well done.

There is also a bit of a love triangle, which I found very comical since Sadie can’t see what these men look like. But because of that, I liked this idea of loving someone for who they are and how they treat you, not just by what they look like.

Highly recommend! Also a clean romance.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for giving me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

“How is it possible,” I said, gazing at the sight of him in wonder, “that you were everywhere? All along?”

The newest book by Katherine Center is out on July 11, and I’m so excited I got the chance to read it ahead of publication! This one was a swoony romance that had great characters - especially our heroine, whose quirky spirit and drive had me rooting for her from the first page!

Okay, admittedly this was a truly ~weird~ concept for a book, and it felt ridiculous at times, but it was JUST. SO. SWOONY. Obviously, the general progression and ending of this story were a surprise to absolutely no one, but I was kinda diggin' it, tbh. I just thought it was fun and the romance just...*sigh* I enjoyed it.

Read if you like:
-dogs eating croissants
-Men Who Are Good With Animals ™
-rollerskating discos
-generally harmless miscommunication trope
-complicated family relationships
-mental and physical healing
-failures are okay!
-hovel-warmings
-therapy!
-planning your marriage to someone after just meeting them (relatable)
-torsos with stellar shoulder-to-hip ratios
-fake, make-them-jealous kisses that are actually very much not fake
-making up your own rules!
-paint-by-touch 👀
-a penthouse of flying snakes
-soul-baring voicemails
-"You can do whatever you want to me." 🫠*cue me melting*

Overall, a silly but enjoyable read!

A thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. HELLO STRANGER is out July 11, 2023.

This is my second Katherine Center book and I absolutely love her writing. This story is a romance, yes it is. But it really is more than that. It tackles an unusual subject that I, for one, had never heard about or knew existed. It made me realize (1) how lucky I am to be able to see things the way that I do (when you read this, you may start to understand how people can see the same thing differently) and (2) that even when faced with a difficult disability, there are usually ways to work around said disability in order to maintain a beautiful quality of life and (3) if only everyone were face blind, there might be a little less cruelty in the world when it comes to how someone looks. You begin to look beyond that in order to find what you may or may not like about a person. This story had some really great moments including one that had me laughing out loud at 11:00 pm and hoping I hadn't woken my husband. There weren't twists per se, but I found myself going back and seeing how it could easily happen the way it happened in her mind. LOVED this story!

I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read of Center’s so far, but Hello Stranger missed the mark a bit for me. I was so interested in the premise, especially because face blindness is something I only recently learned existed, but this story just felt clunky and wrapped up too quickly.

What didn’t work for me

Sadie: While exploring the dynamics of having a portrait artist all of a sudden develop face blindness was interesting, and unlike anything I’d ever seen, I really didn’t care for Sadie at all. She was selfish, self-centred and didn’t really appreciate when people were willing to help her out. I know she had some trauma as a child, but she just acted way too immature for her age. I don’t really know what the love interest saw in her, and I had a really hard time feeling sympathetic for her. If she would have talked to the Portrait Society, I’m sure they would have deferred her entrance or something, too. I just feel like everything was a little too far-fetched for me.

The family dynamics: Speaking of far-fetched, I usually love Katherine Center’s way of developing characters and the relationships around them, but Sadie’s family was full-out unbelievable. It was like Cinderella in real life, but happening right in front of her father, who is a smart, educated doctor. Piper wasn’t really necessary to the story, either. I could’ve done without this storyline at all, especially the way it resolves.

What I liked

The ending: I knew there was going to be a twist of some kind, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t fully expecting it to end the way it did. I liked that I was surprised by it, but I wish things weren’t wrapped up quite as nicely as fast as they did.

The main love interest: Thank goodness for him. He was really likeable and made me want to continue reading the story. I would have almost preferred to read the story through his point of view (especially to see why he liked Sadie so much).

3 STARS

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first Katherine Center book, and I really enjoyed it. It was a light-hearted and fun read. Sadie was a fun main character follow, as we read along with her inner monologue as she navigated her way through a challenging part of her life: how can she continue her life's calling as a portrait artist when she has sudden face blindness? This story touches on a serious real-life condition that I never heard of before, so not only did I enjoy an easy rom-com read, but I also learned something new! There are light aspects throughout that touch on loss/grief, anxiety, bullying, and trust, but it's so light enough that it does not over-power at all. Even the medical condition that Sadie has is so lightly touched upon, when I could imagine that there's so much more here to manage in real life with adjusting to this condition. There's even an evil step sister in this story! What more could you want!?

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this e-ARC of Hello Stranger.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center is an adorable romantic comedy! Sadie is a struggling artist who has an accident and has her life turned upside down. A “minor” surgery leaves her with face blindness—which as a portrait artist is a huge problem. The doctors say it should be temporary but that doesn’t help Sadie now…she’s a finalist in a big art show and she meets the man of her dreams—but she can’t see his face! Enter typical romantic comedy misunderstanding and you can’t help but find yourself cheering for Sadie.

I loved the characters in this book, including Sadie’s precious dog, Peanut. This was just a fun, easy read. I will definitely be checking out Katherine Center’s other books!

I love Katherine Center's books. This is the fourth book of hers that I have read and it did not disappoint. True to her writing style, this book follows Sadie as she gets the best news, an opportunity for her big break, until everything goes wrong and suddenly she can't see faces. This impedes her ability to do her job as a portrait artist, and potentially costs her, her big break opportunity as a top ten finalist in a national portrait competition. She meets her neighbor, who after hearing a conversation he has in the elevator, she determines he's a total jerk, but his actions speak louder than words. Also, she is experiencing bullying by her evil stepsister, and a strained family dynamic with her dad. Will she be able to paint a national award winning portrait (even though her muse gets whisked away on an elopement)?, will her brain swelling go down enough for her face blindness to resolve itself (that darn FFG)?, and will she open herself to the help of her neighbor, (even though he has horrible taste in bowling jackets and speaks horribly about those he spends the night with)?

I throughly enjoyed this latest from Katherine Center. I am always a sucker for a romance with a dog as an important character and Peanut was a delightful little charmer. Our protagonist Sadie was a lovely character as well, her kindness was refreshing. I had vaguely heard of face blindness before reading this book, but this made me want to learn a lot more. It was an interesting spin to have a romance where the female love interest truly couldn't tell who she was talking to at any given time. It certainly led to some confusion and heartache. The only thing I wish had been fleshed out more was the relationship Sadie had with her dad and stepmom; we certainly did get to see some good progress made there, but I would have liked more sooner. Overall, another wonderful read from Center.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.