Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

Official rating: 5 stars
Page turner rating: 4 stars

Sadie seems to barely catch a break when she finds out that she is a finalist in a prestigious art competition. She thinks maybe this is going to be her moment until she finds out that she needs to prioritize her health with an immediate surgery.

I've read a handful of Katherine Center books, and this is easily the best one yet! I was so impressed with the storyline and how down to earth it felt. I had no perception of what Sadie was going through, but it was portrayed really well. Her family dynamic was a bit strange, but I loved how it all tied together. I loved that I knew nothing about this book before jumping in, so I'm going to stay vague in this review and stop here. This is one I will recommend for a while!


Read if you:
- Liked Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez
- Liked Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn
- Are thankful you don't have an evil step-sister
- Love the appeal of a rooftop bar

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

3.5 stars

This book didn’t really wow me. I liked the characters, especially Joe, and the story is a quick read, but it just made me feel sad. Then the epilogue felt kinda preachy to me so I didn’t like it. Like I get that this book is about humanity and how we need to be nicer to people because we don’t know what they’re going through, so it really doesn’t need to be written out in the epilogue. I also found the lack of communication to just be so annoying. Sadie is a gal who just does not like to ask for help, so when she can no longer see faces, she falls into some issues with Joe that could have been so easily avoided if she was just honest.

I wouldn’t not recommend it, I’d probably just suggest borrowing it from your library if you can.

I am always truly delighted to pick up a Katherine Center title. Although this wasn’t my favorite by her, it was still a happy read.

How would you handle being told you have a congenital brain abnormality that requires surgery ASAP? How would you handle that brain surgery leaving you with some life-altering (temporary) side effects?

I know there were some extenuating circumstances but I found myself getting a little frustrated with our main character. She felt so out of touch (I get it) and I just wanted to shake her a few times.

But this was a cute romance with a lovable love interest, an off the walls best friend, and an art competition.

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This is a story that really explores if love is blind.

If you enjoy a classic romcom, but appreciate unique elements to add a bit of a twist- this is a good bet! The author continues to write hilarious dialogue, and there’s a senior dog- a guaranteed way to win me over. It was also fun to follow a struggling artist in a fun, light story that doesn’t feel deeply tragic.

Thank you so much @macmillan.audio for the excellent audio copy! & thank you @stmartinspress for the eArc!

This book was unfortunately not for me. The premise was interesting, but the characters were irritating/ over the top. And the whole ‘twist’ was too predictable.

Thank you Net Galley for an advanced copy of a book by one of my favorite authors! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned about a condition called face blindness. Somehow I have lived 5 decades and hadn’t heard of this actual condition where people with prosopagnosia are unable to see or recognize faces. I had to do some research about this to really understand what it is and how it works. It is a fabulous plot device, especially when the main character, Sadie, is a portrait artist who just got selected to enter a prestigious competition. Luckily she has her dog and friends for support, if not her family. I loved the twists and turns and Katherine Center’s characters, as always, are some I would most want to meet and be friends with.

From the publisher St. Martins Press:

Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—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. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.

But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. 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. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.
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My review:
The premise of this book intrigued me. I have heard of face blindness but Center’s Sadie shows us what it is really like. Her distress, anger and sadness are palpable. I could feel her upset and I felt for her. I so badly wanted her to heal…she deserved it!

The things that bothered me about the book were Sadie’s circle. Her best friend Sue really wasn’t as supportive as one would expect. And Sadie’s father is a very flawed parent; maybe even more disappointing than the evil Parker because he is HER FATHER. It was difficult to read those parts and frankly, I had trouble understanding Parker at all. She is Evil for no reason, and ridiculously so. Parker was just over the top evil! It just made me mad and I don’t like feeling that way in a rom-com.

I saw where the book was going and predicted correctly. Funny but seemingly unrealistic. The ending tied things up and was happy, as rom-coms are. But just a little too much unhappiness on the way there for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance digital copy in exchange for my review.

I started reading this a few months ago and had to pause due to some of the content. I finally read a spoiler to confirm that the worst did NOT happen, so I’ll say this - animal lovers, this one’s safe to read!

I loved it. I love everything by Katherine Center, but it’s good to know that no matter how much I change, I still love her books. That said, either this book has a great twist or I’m the dumbest reader out there, because I did not see it coming. Which was truly delightful and made me enjoy it all the more. I really didn’t know how it was going to end - how Sadie would handle her sudden impairment, what would happen with her art show, and which love interest she’d end up with.

Maybe because KC’s books straddle the women’s fiction/romcom line, but I love how unique they are. They have the depth of women’s fiction with the HEA of a romance and enough LOL moments to push them into romCOM territory. She’s one of the few authors whose novels I can reliably lose myself in every single time. I look forward to a new one every year and get kinda sad and maybe a little cranky when I’ve finished one since I know I have to wait at least a whole ‘nother year before I get a new one.

All this to say, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Hello Stranger this July. If you haven’t already, might as well pick up KC’s backlist while you’re at the store. Happy reading!

Thanks to NetGalley for the gifted copy.

I absolutely adored this book! It was a fun twist on a romance novel with some more depth than other books of the same genre. I loved the chemistry between Sadie and Joe, as well as the family dynamics throughout the book. An easy, delightful read!

Last summer, I lost myself in The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. This summer, Center had a new treat in store for me. From the first chapter, Hello Stranger reads like a Cinder-fella story, but with a unique twist and complications for the characters to overcome--brain surgery recovery under the deadline of a career-advancing art competition. I rooted for Sadie from the beginning as she explained her complicated relationship with her Dad and her initial meeting with a handsome stranger who she has prime banter with. Readers will love this book and it ought to be selected for many book clubs!

A nice read - nothing that’s earth-shattering or life-altering, but that’s ok sometimes, right? I enjoy most of this author’s work and this one was no exception. Give this a gander, you’ll be glad that you did.

I struggle with vision issues, so getting into this story took a lot out of me because of my own personal triggers. Although Center tackled a difficult topic, she did so in a way that made the book enjoyable to read.

It's surprising to learn that many people suffer from face blindness, and some of them don't even know they have it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing an early copy of this book with me!

This book was a TRIP! The main character Sadie is a witty realist who experiences a medical condition which quite literally changes how she sees the world. Full of frank discussions of loss and the grief which envelops those the dead leave behind, this book also contained moments of great levity, mistaken identity (although I’m still not sure how realistic it was), and made me rethink how I interact with the world, specifically with the faces in the world. This is the second novel of Stranger’s I’ve read and her injection of snark and novelty into her work has made me a definite subscriber.

Poor Sadie has a lot to deal with. She suffers from prosopagnosia aka face blindness after getting an edema removed from her brain. Yikes! She can't recognize her best friend, her father, not even herself in the mirror! Luckily, she can recognize her dog, Peanut, her only source of comfort for a time. Unfortunately she is also a portrait artist and has been entered into a competition that she has to produce a new portrait for the show. When she meets a man and another man, she has to choose between two men she's never seen before. There were a lot of funny moments in this book and I liked Sadie as a character. I wasn't a fan of her father, her best friend, or her literal evil stepsister but it was a quick read with a serious topic. I liked it better than The Bodyguard.

This was a touching story, with some heavy triggers. Make sure you check out the trigger warnings before you read. You will need tissues.

Oh my goodness this book was pretty amazing! I loved the representation, and it was so fast and easy to get hooked!

Okay, I need to preface this by saying I love Katherine Center so much, and I will continue to read her future books and her backlist, but this book. this book was not for me.

I could not root for the FMC (female main character), something about her rubbed me the wrong way. The story was and it drug on for forever. The family tension was childish, the portrait painting was boring, I don't know this just wasn't for me!!!!

<spoilers ahead>

The "twist" was so bad. I literally never was rooting for her to get with the vet "her future fiance" and so when her grumpy neighbor turned out to be him, when the faceblindness lifted I was more excited for the book to be over than for the twist.

<spoilers over>

"The more good things you look for, the more you find."

Sadie, like her mother, is an artist. After a very public seizure she discovers that she has more in common with her mom than just their artistic abilities. Sadie also has a genetic condition, the exact same one that killer her mom, that requires immediate brain surgery. After surgery Sadie develops some swelling that caused a temporary prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Soon after, she begins to fall for two very different men. Because she can not see their faces she has to rely on other aspects...their personalities, charm, and even their gait, to decide which she has the better connection with. Will it be her crass but charming neighbor or the compassionate veterinarian who saved her beloved dog, Peanut? & Is love truly blind?

How good is a book when you feel like you know exact what's going to happen and exactly how it's all going to play out, yet you still cannot put it down? This was my third Katherine Center book and my favorite of the bunch. So far I've liked each book more than the last & look forward to whatever she writes next! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. 4 stars.

Katherine Center just keeps cranking out hits, y’all! I enjoyed so much about this book and loved her fresh idea for the very common miscommunication trope. Face blindness? That was an AMAZING choice from the author and I can really appreciate the time and research she put into being sure she gave an accurate representation of this neurological disorder.
Did I suspect the ending? Yes I did. But, that didn’t ruin bad things for me because I honestly had no idea how the author was going to make all the dots connect.

I was originally giving this book 4 stars, but after having time to think it over, I’m bumping it up another star for the lovely Author’s Note at the end. I just love Katherine Center and I think we’d be great bookish buds if I ever met her in real life.

Hello Stranger is my favorite book by Katherine Center so far.
Sadie has finally been accepted into a portrait competition that she has been entering for years. This has been a goal since her mother was also entered in the contest before she died. When a freak accident causes Sadie to be unable to distinguish faces, she doesn't know how she will be able to compete. On top of that, there are two men suddenly in her life. One who she was sure was a total jerk before they got to know each other. The other is her veterinarian who may just be the love of her life. Everything comes to a head when she realizes she has to choose.
This was such an incredible book. Sadie may be my favorite romance heroine ever. She was so refreshing and realistic. This book had everything I could have wanted and more.