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.

3.5 rounded up. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book from one of my favorite authors. The story had a great message to it but fell a little short at times compared to her others. It was definitely a little bit depressing though parts of it but had a good ending. I loved the parts with Sadie and Joe and wish it had a little bit more of that.

This book was SO SO good! I was so intrigued after reading the synopsis of this book and let me just tell you, it 100 percent lived up to that! I had never read a romance like this before, and I really enjoyed it! I had also never heard of the condition the fmc had! It was so cool to learn about it, and I think the author did such a good job of describing what it was and what it felt like!

I LOVED Sadie's character! She was super relatable! I loved how delusional she was -- something I can definitely relate to!

Also, can we just talk about that HUGE plot twist? I was not expecting that at all! It was probably one of the best plot twists I have ever read in a romance book! This really made my rating higher!

The only reason I gave this book one less star was because what was described as a love triangle on the synopsis was very far from one. Yes, there were aspects of a love triangle, but that was really only a very small amount of the book. I also just thought some parts were very predictable and some of the love story was really cheesy to me.

All this to say though, I really enjoyed this book! I am definitely going to have read more of Katherine Center's books!

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a romance with a little more kick! It is also a closed-door romance, which was another plus that I really enjoyed!

First I would like to state that my favorite part of this book is the authors note at the end. It is such a wonderful summary of why I love romance and how society views reading them. It was so thoughtful and poignantly written, I almost wish the book had started with it, I may have enjoyed it even more.

This reminded me of Katherine Center's other books, very character driven. It was a fun, feel good read. The beginning was a little hard for me to get into. I thought Sadie seemed a little self centered and a lot negative. Her friend Sue was a nice counter balance, but she was so depressing. It was also hard for me to read about her dog being sick because we just had to put our dog down so I am sure that didn't help my first impressions.

However, once the ball got rolling (and the dog got better) this was a feel good, fun read that I have come to expect from Centers. It was "predictable", hopeful and fun!

i have read almost all Katherine Centers books because they are always lovely stories Hello Stranger may be one of my favorites. The protagonist Sadie Montgomery has been struggling, a near accident, brain surgery and now face blindness(prosopagnosia). A lot to deal with especially for a portrait artist. It seems my favorite Katherine Center books deal with some sort of disability. More to overcome, more emotions and just more heartwarming. Even though we know where the story is going it’s wonderful to be along for the ride. Thanks to Netgalley and St Martins Press for the advanced copy

Short synopsis: Sadie is a portrait artist and just earned a coveted spot in a painting competition, when she discovers she has to have brain surgery and is left with Face Blindness.

My thoughts: I just adore Katherine Center’s writing. She has a way of creating such lovable characters (and pets) that I just can’t help but binge her books.

I’ve never read a book about face blindness before. It’s so difficult to comprehend such a condition exists, but you can totally tell the research was done. Everything was explained so well, and the writers note and the end just amplified the condition.

Although I expected the “twist” in this story really early on, I loved the anticipation of watching Sadie unravel the truth herself.

Such a sweet story of love, growth, experience, following your dreams, and putting yourself out there.

“The more good things you look for, the more you find”

Read if you love:
- Foodie Dogs
- Great friends
- Standing up for yourself
- Following your passions
- Growth and experience

Unfortunately, this was not for me. I had really high hopes after loving The Bodyguard last year, but I didn't love it. I didn't vibe with the insta-love trope and I had a very hard time connecting with the characters. I'll still be reading future books by Katherine Center, because I have enjoyed her past work!