I loved this one! It was a page turner from start to finish. I felt the character's emotions as she felt them. There was so much more to the story and I loved that it built it up the way it did. I wasn't entirely sure until the end what had happened with "Joe" and why he'd been so upset. The twists and turns made the ending even better!

I liked the unique premise of this rom com and thought it highlighted some great moral dilemmas. I like how she fell in love with "two" people essentially, but I won't spoil that part. Overall, I enjoyed the book and found it to be heartwarming.

A cute rom com with an ending that left me smiling. What brought this down a star for me was just the predictability. I saw the end coming pretty much from the beginning, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the story as it went. I found myself laughing and smiling often. But also rolling my eyes some, as the main character finally came to the same realization that I came to many chapters before. Overall, worth the read/listen and a great romantic comedy to leave you feeling good!

A big thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Katherine Center for providing me with this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book so much. Katherine Center writes such beautiful stories of emotional depth that bring joy to her readers. I loved the characters that she created here. I guessed the "surprise" early on in the book, but that did not take away from my enjoyment of it at all. I liked it so much that I pre-ordered a physical copy of the book AFTER I had finished reading the e-arc. I recommend this one for sure.

I loved this book because it was so unique. I had never heard of facial blindness and it was a great take on the traditional romance book. I typically struggle to keep my focus in the middle of romance novels but this one held my interest the entire way through. The supporting characters were amazing especially the Kims!

It’s not often that a book leaves me so completely surprised. In a world full of tropes and recycled plot lines, Hello Stranger was an utter joy and a puzzle that I got it put together right along with the main character. I loved it. Maybe the best Katherine Center book yet.

I received a copy of this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

First off, thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this ARC! This was my first Katherine Center book and i thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed that the plot line was different to most other rom-com’s and story felt so heartfelt to me. I would definitely recommend this to anyone else planning on picking this book up!

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

First off - Katherine Center is such a gifted person when it comes to writing books that are topic heavy but heart light. Meaning her books have substance and by no means deal with trivial issues for the main character. Yet somehow, I always feel so hopeful and joyful after reading her books. This one gave me the same feeling I had after reading Lisa Genova's work. I may have gone down a rabbit hole researching faceblindness.

Secondly - I LOVE an epilogue. It makes me happy.

I'd heard of Katherine Centers as an author but hadn't read any of her books so was so excited to get this ARC. I completely enjoyed this book and it was just the right dose of hope and happiness. I was surprised by the twist towards the end of the book--which is something i love in a book. I look forward to reading more of this author. Thank you net galley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! I was so excited when I got approved for this book and it did not disappoint.

From page 1, I was hooked and fully invested in the characters, the narrative voice, and the storyline.

The book follows Sadie, a young woman who is struggling artist. She has went through a lot familial trauma that shapes how she perceives the world and people.

One day, she goes through a medical emergency that requires her to need brain surgery, which ends up resulting in her developing prosopagnosia, or more commonly known as face blindness. This becomes a great hardship in her life because her work as a portrait artist requires her to be able to capture people’s faces authentically on canvas.

I found this story line intriguing and is what kept me turning the page. Sadie’s journey dealing with the condition, while also coping with some deeply rooted trauma from her mother’s death and her upbringing soon after (her father remarrying and her manipulative step sister), was heartbreaking. I found her inner monologue to be evocative and inspiring at times, especially towards the end when she comes into terms with herself.

There were some things I didn’t really enjoy. I found that some characters were too 1-dimensional, like the stepsister and the best friend. I found their actions to be over-the-top at times, which I didn’t mind too much, being that this is a romcom—I could easily picture the book as a movie—but sometimes it took me out it.

Also, some of the dialogue felt unnatural. I’m also not the biggest fan of the miscommunication troupe in romances, and the biggest plot line revolves around one big miscommunication.

However, none of this ruined my reading experience. I loved the book and definitely a fan of Center’s writing. Her authors notes at the end about romance books was beautifully written, and made me appreciate the genre even more than I already do.

I received an early ebook copy of this book for review and this is my honest opinion.

I’m not entirely sure what expectations I had before I first started this book by Katherine Center but I was not prepared for how much I enjoyed it. The medical nerd in me loved the neurological aspects of Sadie’s condition. The author expertly weaved how important the medical issue was to her background and the lens she saw the world through. Sadie’s dog was a great sidekick and provided lots of heartwarming elements as well as her best friend, and her parents.

I’m used to reading books with more open-door spice but the tension between Sadie and the main male character was definitely steamy and in the end, the emotional journey Sadie goes through was enough.
Will definitely be recommending this book to others!

4.5 stars

I became a fan of Katherine Centre last year after reading The Bodyguard and I've been making my way through her entire collection. Her writing is phenomenal and this is no exception!

I loved the FMC, Sadie, she was extremely relatable because she was such a disaster sometimes!

I ADORED the neuropsychologist Dr. Nicole and her talk about the art of self-confidence… it really stuck with me because do I ever need to work on that. She taught Sadie to fight with herself instead of fighting with others and I loved that.

I had some thoughts on where the book was going but I definitely did not see the ending and all the reveals!

My one beef with this book is why did Sadie not confront Joe even after they started talking and she thought he was a terrible person on the elevator?!


Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio & St Martin's Press for advance copies in exchange for an honest review.

Humorous, light, sweet, and character driven. Katherine Center is amazing at finding the way the characters twist with each other.

Katherine center! I love her books! I’ve met her and she’s a doll. She’s a fellow Texan. You won’t be disappointed with any of the books you read written by her.

I absolutely LOVED Hello Stranger and devoured it. The premise was unique and the characters interesting. I enjoyed the sweet romance and didn’t even miss the spice! I really liked the writing style and will definitely be delving into the author’s back catalogue.

And the Author’s Notes were amazing, don’t miss them!

Another fantastic book from Katherine Center! She has quickly become one of my favorite authors and I always look forward to reading her books. They're a little formulaic in terms of the plot, but the characters are always endlessly endearing and relatable. Center tends to highlight a traumatic or life-altering event in each one of her books that one of the main character experiences. In this one, Sadie, a struggling portrait artist has brain surgery and an immediate result is face blindness, meaning her brain can properly see faces. Sadie has to re-learn how to do things she always took for granted in her life. I really liked the relationships in her life and seeing how they shifted. Patti Murin perfectly narrates the audiobook. She has such a relatable delivery, which perfectly suits Katherine Center's conversational tone.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ebook/audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

To start, thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for granting me access to the ARC for Hello Stranger by Katherine Center.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Sadie is a struggling artist, trying to prove to her family and herself that she made the right move by following in her late mother's footsteps to become a portrait artist. When Said is accepted into a prestigious portrait contest, she knows that this is her big break, but then, enter...brain surgery. What follows is Sadie's process of healing her relationship with herself, her family, her outlook, and even a little romance all while adjusting to a complication in her surgery resulting in (hopefully) temporary face-blindness.

There were aspects of this book that I enjoyed, and this book has certainly received many enthusiastic 5-star reviews, so I may be an outlier here, but while I can say I overall enjoyed it, there was a lot left to be desired for me with this book. For starters, the main character. Now this one surprised me, because normally I enjoy a messy main character and love them for all their human messiness, but for some reason with Sadie, I had a difficult time enjoying her. She felt a little flighty and whiny, but not in a way I was rooting for. My other main hurdle was the romance. While I will not blatantly spoil the twist, I am finding it hard to write without some minor spoilers...so spoiler alert....

I found it hard to believe Sadie's feelings for both, neighbor Joe and the veterinarian Oliver. Both seemed like way too much too soon and while there was a portion of it that I found believable, particularly with Oliver, because Sadie herself admitted that a lot of it was fantastical, I really wish there was more time spent between Sadie and Joe because when feelings are admitted, I had a hard time finding them truly genuine. Also the lack of memory on Sadie's part from before the accident was a lot, and I think really spoke to the self-involved streak of Sadie's that felt like....a lot. I would personally be hurt if I were Joe.

So again, maybe not my favorite, but not every book is perfect for every reader and there was certainly a lot to love in this one for many readers out there!

I have to admit that I didn’t even know that a condition known as face blindness existed. While my nerdy Google Dive was wonderfully satisfying, the door to empathy really opened while following the story of Sadie Montgomery, who, after being hit by a car, is diagnosed with this condition, which is “probably” temporary… which means it also is, potentially, permanent.
Just to make matters worse… Sadie paints… Portraits. One of the few things that requires an in-depth understanding of what faces look like.
It was fascinating to find out about prosopagnosia. I don’t have it (because yes, of course I did the online test, although I can definitely see faces – and yes, I did glance up as I was typing that to make sure I could still see my child and my husband’s faces, stop laughing!), but I definitely felt the anxiety and confusion of not being able to see a face, a testament to Katherine Center’s ability to craft a story, dig into a character, and make you love them as if they were your IRL friends.
Fiction as a way to build empathy and understanding and Katherine Center does this really well. I think the way the story about Sadie’s struggle with her temporary (or not…) prosopagnosia was set within a very sweet love story helps readers truly empathise with her. The author also tugged at our heartstrings, making us more empathic from the get-go, by making Sadie mother-less and making her father unable to cope well enough with her passing to be a present figure in his daughter’s life. And she makes us protective of Sadie by throwing in a very toxic stepsister and an enabling but surprisingly sweet, by the end, mother-in-law.
One topic I particularly appreciated was that of perception. There is obviously the concept of what our eyes and brains perceive and its effect on the way that we move through the world. There is also the struggle to balance out our perception of a situation with the truth of the situation—and what truth really is.

This was my second book by Katherine Center and I really enjoyed it. This was a fun quick read with characters I really liked and connected to. Sadie is a portrait artist all set to win her first major competition when she finds out she needs brain surgery and it inadvertently causes her to have face blindness. While they think it will be a temporary problem she now has to figure out a new way to paint while also dealing with not recognizing people in her life. I liked the story and the journey that Sadie went through to really find herself something she had a hard time being able to do after losing her mother at a young age. The side characters were also likeable and the love interests were as well and was easy to see how she could so easily have feelings for both. I really enjoy her writing style it's very easy to read entertaining and gets you wrapped up in the story quickly. I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

One of my favorite authors did not disappoint.
This was such a beautiful heartfelt story and an epic romance with a stunning couple.
Highly recommend it!