Ableism CW.
Unfortunately, this was a miss for me. Katherine Center typically drives into some heavier topics and infuses them with joy, which in the past has sometimes been related to disability like with How to Walk Away. However, Hello Stranger is full of problematic ableist tropes that didn't allow me as a disabled reader to enjoy much of the story. The plot revolves around a new disability and uses aspects of face blindness to drive the plot and make things "quirky." The plot twist also revolved around the disability, which you can see coming from a mile away, but as a disabled reader I was still hoping she would choose to do something else, because in this day and age that's a really harmful thing to do, and it's well known to be harmful, especially when it's coming from an author who doesn't share that disability and isn't using nuance to break it down. This book unfortunately distills things down into a stereotypically palpitable narrative very clearly made for abled people rather than actually centering disabled people with sensitivity. It's rather disappointing that this got past editors when it's clear that the representation in here is harmful. It also employs the magical cure trope, which was stated at the beginning at least, but is good to know for disabled readers, as it's another one that we really try to avoid in literature these days. There is also plenty of ableist language.

I did think Joe was a great character and a lovely, caring person.

I received a free arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest opinion

I really love Kathrine Center but this one was kind of a miss for me. I loved the medical and neurological pieces of this book. I learned about this condition in school because it has a huge visual perception part to it which I really enjoyed reading about.

What didn’t I like… well I really couldn’t get in to the characters. They never grabbed me and made me want to see them make it. Im not a huge fan of insta love either so that part wasn’t for me.

The step sister Parker was WAY overdone in my opinion. No adult acts that way and it made me cringe 😬.

Anyway, I still love Katherine Center and I can see how many would like this one so check it out for yourself!

Spice: None, just kissing.

Read this if you like:
🧠 Fascinating visual perception disorders
🧠 Insta Love
🧠 Overcoming illness

"Knowing that I don't have it all figured out--facing that somehow in some way every day-- forces me to be compassionate with myself."

Hello Stranger is about an artist who has to have surgery on her brain right after she finds out that she advanced in a prestigious portrait painting competition that could change her life, but her surgery's side effects has her scrambling to make something she can be proud of.

I adore Katherine Center and she is an auto-buy author for me. This one just did not hit like I wanted it to. I think that I found Sadie to be somewhat unbearable as a FMC.

The first 60% of the book was just hard for me to get through. I found Sadie to act like a victim and I also thought that she was incredibly selfish. There is a lot that would change in her life if she would just learn to communicate. In the end, she learns this somewhat, but I am not sure if she would actually change for the better.

I also found that the vet/Joe to be confusing. I had assumed that they were going to end up being the same person BUT I just did not love the way it was done. I spent a lot of time thinking that maybe they were two different people because I just did not see how 1. she didn't make the connection or 2. how he didn't make the connection that there was indeed something that was off about her and how they never talked about their run ins while she was at the vet. Also how did he never ask her how her dog was doing when they hung out? I know that this was the hook of the book, but it was a huge miss for me.

HELLO STRANGER • Katherine Center • Pub Date: July 11, 2023 {2.5 stars, rounded up}

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. After reading my first book by the author (THE BODYGUARD), I was thrilled to pick up another book by Center. And this plot certainly grabbed my interest!

Abridged Goodreads Synopsis: Sadie Montgomery never saw it coming. One minute she’s celebrating news of becoming a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition and the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. As she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, she falls into...love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life? — with two very different men. The timing couldn’t be worse. If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Luckily, there are always other ways of seeing.

I love a romance book, for all the reasons Center lays out in her Author's Note of this book. Call it the predictability, hope, anticipation...I love knowing that at the end of the book, there will be a happy ending. I also have absolutely no issue with a corny plot that requires me to suspend disbelief a little bit. But I have to say...this story was tough.

Yes, I enjoyed the message of this novel. However, most of this book I spent cringing. I could tell very quickly where this was all going, and I did not enjoy following Sadie's journey to get there. Part of it was Sadie herself — her character felt inappropriately juvenile, selfish, and whiny. Her incessant, aggressive need to push away help may have been a necessary component to the plot, but boy was it annoying to read about. As were the antagonists who were hate-able, but in all the wrong ways.

Most notably, I could not buy into the Dr. Addison vs. Joe "love triangle". Sue's disbelief at the end of the book? Yeah, that was me. Wrong or right, I did not buy Sadie's explanations as easily as Sue did. This made it hard for me stop questioning and just enjoy the love story.

TL;DR: The premise of this book was unlike any I have ever read before. I think many readers will find it refreshing and fun. While this may not have been the right fit for me, I would still recommend it to all my romance readers.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a quick read for me. I really felt like the story was well written.

Katherine Center’s writing is straight happiness. She is my go to author for when I want a fun feel good read. Hello Stranger is no exception. I absolutely LOVED this story. I loved that I also learned something new during this story. I will forever recommend Katherine Center. Thank you so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen in exchange for a review.

Oomphh.. this story was not quite as I had expected. But first of all, let me start by saying how much I loved Sadie. She was so funny, sarcastic & dreamy, at times that reminded me of Rebecca Bloomwood from Confessions of a Shopaholic series. She was so full of life even when the situations demanded otherwise.

Although I knew what was coming with the romance, the revelation still surprised me in a way. The romance was really wholesome with a great banter.

But mostlit was Sadie's journey through all the hardships & she handled a new reality while mending broken relationships. Sadie being an angel, I hated how some of the side characters were either evil, or absent, or oblivious.

It's a very different & comforting book that will make you appreciate life.

<i>Thank you, Netgalley & Publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review.<i>

At first I had no idea where this story of a girl who was selected as a finalist for a portraits competition who father disapproved was going but man I am So glad I stud with it! This story really gets you thinking about paying attention to the details in order to see the bigger picture. The twist and HEA at the end doesn’t hurt matters either!

I absolutely adored this book, and I flew through it! I could relate to Sadie so much in the fact that she was so reluctant to accept help from anyone. Did I want to scream into my book a few times, yes, definitely. But the story was just so addictive I could look past any miscommunication that was happening. Bravo Katherine Center! You are quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC of this novel.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book. It felt new and different, unique. I found some parts a little predictable but in a way that I still wanted to keep going and rooting for Sadie.

While this didn't end up being my favorite Katherine Center book, I still really enjoyed it with it's unique premise even if you knew where it was headed it was still fun to see how it was going to play out.

A perfect read for a beach vacation or honestly any day you just need to escape.

I listened to the audio and thought that the narrator did a great job and would recommend the audio to others.

Katherine Center is one of my favorite authors but unfortunately Hello Stranger was a miss for me. The premise of the story was intriguing: an artist named Sadie develops face blindness after an accident and everything she perceives about the world and her art shifts. At the same time, she falls in love with two men whose faces she can’t see.
While the premise is compelling, Sadie as a character is a problem: she is selfish, whiny, and comes off as bratty even before her surgery. For someone who claims to be self sufficient, she goes through crisis after crisis and can’t seem to get out of her own way.
If you normally love Katherine Center, you should still check this book out and decide for yourself.

Thank you Netgalley for this Arc. The premise of this book was good, I did feel kind of bored throughout reading but overall a cute, cozy read! 3.5 stars

READ, THIS, BOOK, NOW!!!! I absolutely adored Hello Stranger by Katherine Center. Center just such an amazing job of creating storylines and characters that are so different than any others on the market. Her books immediately hook you and keep you turning the page. It was funny, heartfelt, and informative on a topic I had never heard of. I also truly did not see the twist coming at the end. Absolutely in my Top 10 for the year.

I only fell in love with reading romance about a year ago. It was my "Hello, Stranger" moment, if you will. Romantic relationships were a part of the books I'd been reading, but not the focus. And then I found some authors that made the pieces fall right into place for me. I've discovered Katherine Center's work relatively recently, and perhaps you can imagine my delight when reading the Author's Note in Hello Stranger and discovering that Center also had a similarly-timed, surprising, and delightful fall-in-love-with-romance moment. Oh, do I ever love a sense of connection with an author!

I also love a sense of connection with a character, and Sadie Montgomery's sassy independence, quirkiness, and self-deprecating humor was charming, though tinged with a bit of sadness. She is a portrait artist who, due to an unusual medical issue, is now living with a condition commonly known as face blindness - but that's not where the story begins. She has had a very strained relationship with her family since the death of her mother, which left her determined to succeed on her own - but also lonely. Her best friend, Sue, balances out what Sadie views as her shortcomings - Sue is cheerful, outgoing, and has a loving family who has welcomed Sadie in as if she's one of their own. And occasionally a "generic white male" appears in Sadie's life, for better or for worse. *Cue the somewhat obscured romantic storyline that makes you simultaneously crave reaching the end of the book to figure it all out but also wanting the sweet, slow burn to last forever* Does Sadie make mistakes? Absolutely! Some she can see coming and some she can't (but perhaps you, dear reader, can!). And we see that sometimes a serendipitous moment can change everything.

Katherine Center has created endearing characters in Sadie, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, and Joe; love-to-hate them characters in Dr. Montgomery, Lucinda, and Parker; and the best cheering squad you can imagine in Sue, Dr. Nicole, and Augusta. Her writing evokes a wide range of feelings; I laughed, wept inwardly, and had several a-ha! moments that would have been visible on my face to anyone nearby. Hello Stranger is a masterpiece of what Center explains to us (in her Author's Note) is a "positively valanced" novel, and I look forward - with great anticipation - to what she has in store for us next.

Sadie has been struggling ever since she gave up med school to pursue her dream of being a painter. She wants to follow in her mom's footsteps; becoming an artist, a top 10 finalist for the North American Portrait Society, and diagnosed with a rare brain disease. After her emergency brain surgery, Sadie's main side effect leaves her with face blindness. This is a HUGE issue as she has to paint a face for her final portrait work. Oh, and she has fallen for two someones she can't see.

Katherine (great name btw) Center is slowly inching her way up to my top rom-com authors, Emily Henry watch out. This is my second book by Center, my first being The Bodyguard and this one had a bit more depth to it. I laughed, I teared up, I thoroughly enjoyed every page and finished this in 2 days with 0 interruptions. It was a perfect palette cleanser and just what I needed to refresh my reading streak. Thank you so much Katherine (again love your name) St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. I recommend this book if you are needing a cute, fun read. Rating this a 3.5.

This book was another Katherine Center hit for me. It was charming and heartfelt. The premise was a little out there, but I think it all came together well.

Sadie is struggling with life. Her family life isn't great, her job is not going well, and she lives in a hovel. After having brain surgery, she is also suffering from face blindness, very inconvenient when you are a portrait artist. This book is her story of working through life issues and perhaps finding love along the way.

I really adored this book. It brought out all the big feels for me. I loved her complicated love situation, I enjoyed the zany situations that the face blindness gave us, and I loved her journey toward reconciliation with her family. Sadie grew a lot throughout this book and learned a lot about letting others in. It was just a feel good book that left me smiling. I also really loved Katherine Center's author's note about romance novels and why they are the best. The hope that they bring us is important and worthy.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoy Katherine Center's books. They always leave me with a happy feeling.
In this book, Sadie Montgomery has just heard she is a finalist in a portrait painting competition, the same one that her mother qualified for years ago, right before she died. But, Sadie has a seizure and awakens in the hospital to find that she needs to have emergency surgery on her brain to repair a defect which could cause sudden death. After having the procedure, Sadie has face blindness, or prosopagnosia, which means she can't recognize faces. This is disastrous for a portrait artist, but she still attempts to do her work. Her father has remarried, and Sadie's stepsister, Parker, is nasty, making Sadie's life miserable.
Meanwhile, her dog, Peanut, gets sick, and Sadie's vet, Oliver, asks Sadie on a date. Sadie plans out (in her mind) that she will marry Oliver. Then, a man in her building, Joe, takes an interest in Sadie. Now, Sadie is torn between the two men.
Of course, I saw the twist early on, but still enjoyed this love story, and Sadie's road to finding her way to seeing what she needs in life.

Hello Stranger Katherine Center

Hello, indeed. This is one of the best books I have read in 2 years! I enjoy a lot of books but this one will stick with me for a good, long while. I ordered it right after I finished the ARC.

Hello Stranger centers around Sadie Montgomery who is a struggling portrait artist who has an opportunity to win a National Portrait contest to show that she is good at what she does. While shopping for a celebration, Sadie has a medical emergency and needs surgery which causes her to have face blindness. Remember the part where she is a portrait artist? Hard to do your job when you can't see faces. The concept is so interesting and it was neat to learn more about face blindness. We see Sadie having to figure out how to live with this condition. She has her terrible family to deal with: a father who seems to really dislike her, a stepmother who is too much in her business, and an absolutely horrible step-sister that I was hoping would get what was coming to her. Sadie has her best friend, her friend's parents, and her wonderful dog, Peanut, in her life to help along the way. Along her journey, Sadie meets and falls in love with two men for different reasons. There is a twist at the end that makes the whole book.

I have only read one other Katherine Center book but she really makes her characters well-rounded. Sadie was fully formed and I loved how she truly discovers a new part of herself. While this is a romance at heart, I do like that we were on the journey and struggle with Sadie. Every character was brought to life and given something special to make them memorable.

Read the author's note at the end. I love how Katherine speaks of her joy for reading and how she started writing romance which can get a bad rap. Please go and read this book. You will not regret it!

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin's Press, and Katherine Center for the e-ARC. This review is my own opinion.

I am DNFing this book after the ugly fatphobic conversation the main character overhears from a character who will clearly be her love interest. I’ve skimmed the rest and have learned that he’s talking about a dog, but Center should respect her readers more than to include this ugliness. Her last book was so unpleasant for me that I feel like this is a sign to stop now.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.