Hello Stranger was cute, and well written, and I love the cover however, it seemed to miss the mark for me. Saddie is struggling, and when she thinks her luck has come around, life has other plans leading to her needing brain surgery which unfortunately results in her inability to see people's faces. Then her dog gets sick, and her neighbor keeps witnessing these awful, embarrassing parts of her life. However, she falls in love with two men, so that's a plus. As cute as the idea of the book was. it just fell a little flat for me; it felt like a 180 from The Bodyguard (which I loved). I felt like the characters were also a little immature for me, and it felt like a lot was going on in the book with not enough pages; however, Joe was a bright spot for me. Because of him, I continued the book even though the "plot twist" was pretty predictable. Lastly, There was very little romance, but the romance included didn't feel authentic. For example, when they said, "I love you," it felt like it came out of left field. It was a sweet and easy read that produced some laughs but was not my favorite.

***I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own and given freely***

TW: grief and parental loss

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy!

Sadie has been through the wringer over the last many years and could really use a win. Ever since her mother died, her Dad has been distant and unsupportive, his new wife has been a meddler and her step-sister has been a nightmare. She is trying her hand at that artist life but has been more starving than artist. She finally places in a prestigious art competition when a medical scare forces her to have barin surgery. When she wakes up, she can no longer see faces. Not ideal for a portrait artist.
As she begins to recover, she has to learn to navigate the world with "face blindness".

Such a fun book! I love Sadie and the whole cast of characters. I guessed many of the twists pretty early on but it did not take any enjoyment out of the book for me.

*Not sure it qualifies as a true trigger warning, but Sadie has some seriously toxic family members. Narcissistic abuse and one of them blames her for the death of her mom.

This is my second Kathrine Center book. With that said I absolutely loved this one. Sadie is loveable and so is Joe. I fell in love with both characters. The warm feeling of the story and the hope that Sadie would be okay kept me going until the end. It was kind of predictable and obvious as most romances are but it was fun and it was cute. One of I could read it for the first time again I would just to experience it again.

My first read from this author and it won’t be my last!
I really enjoyed the writing of this author, it was fun but serious; it was so real and relatable.
Ok, I’ve never had or heard of this condition that Sadie experienced! But I couldn’t imagine it, and the way the author explained it I can see where Sadie was coming from and how she was trying to trudge forward with her life!
I was so in love Oliver and Joe 😏, they were great companion options for Sadie and I couldn’t have been more thrilled with who she ended up with!! 😏😏
If I’m honest, the beginning of the book started a little slow for me; but keep reading folks, it gets better; I’m so glad I was patient with this one!!

I am a Katherine Center fan. I’ve read everything she’s written. This is by far the strangest story I’ve read lately. A very intriguing premise of a portrait artist who has surgery and can’t distinguish faces anymore. However, Sadie just drives you crazy, I got so frustrated I just had to stop reading.

This will not stop me from buying and reading her next new novel.

Thank you, Net Galley, for an ARC of Hello Stranger by Katherine Center. I think, really think, this is my favorite Katharine Center book. But, let's be honest, they are all fantastic. This storyline has all the feels, I smiled so much, cried, felt everything. I feel in love with both of the MCs. Just, WOW!

I'm so glad I picked up this book when it was on "Read Now" a few weeks ago. It has such an interesting and fascinating concept — a woman who's an artist needs to have brain surgery, and she wakes up with face blindness. I was a little worried going in how this would be handled, but I thought it was done with a lot of sensitivity and care. Hello Stranger was my first Katherine Center book, but it won't be my last.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

3.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the early copy of this book!

This is most definitely the most unique romance I’ve ever read, and I promise I mean that wholeheartedly as a compliment. I’ve truly never read anything like this, and I know many others will feel the same.

While I did not enjoy it as much as Center’s previous novel, The Bodyguard, it is still a gem of its own.

Hello Stranger follows Sadie Montgomery over the course of a few very tumultuous weeks as she works to complete a portrait for an esteemed portrait competition that she recently became a finalist for. Sadie is determined to win and to prove everyone that’s doubted her — her father, stepmother, and evil stepsister especially — wrong. There’s only one slight issue: she’s also recovering from a brain surgery in which a complication resulted in her having face blindness.

Sadie was such a lovely protagonist and she was extremely easy to root for. The (main) love interest on the other hand took some time to win me over, but once he won me over, he won me over.

I also surprisingly really enjoyed the inclusion of the painting competition. Usually jobs or hobbies in books are thrown in as a quick way to characterize a protagonist or give them some actual depth but this time it actually played a significant and interesting role in the story, especially alongside the face blindness. (I on particularly really wish I could see how her final portrait turned on.)

Speaking of the face blindness, I was honestly kind of confused at first at why it was included but it also ended up adding an interesting depth to the story. I loved seeing Sadie grapple with the big adjustments in her everyday life after the surgery and I really enjoyed watching her evolve and change her perspective of her condition over the course of the story. It turns out face blindness doubles as a very insightful metaphor toward Sadie’s own life.

Despite my enjoyment of all these plot elements, I have to admit that I often felt like too much was happening at once in this novel. There were so many threads that ultimately began to unravel at the same time and it got a bit overwhelming.

I had some issues with some of the comments made in this novel too, especially regarding a certain resident of Sadie’s building. I feel like that could have been excluded.

Additionally, I wasn’t a fan of how new plot points or details would be introduced that seemed to serve no other purpose than acting as a convenient plot device. An example of this is the plot point that’s introduced to get rid of Sadie’s best friend so that Sadie could spend more time with the LI.

Speaking for convenience, I feel that some of the characters in this novel — particularly those depicted to be the “villains” of this story — came off more as caricatures rather than realistic people mostly in order to evoke sympathy on Sadie’s behalf.

Then came the third act. Center is pretty creative with her “third act conflicts.” At first, I was like, “There’s no way this can have a logical resolution.” And then it did!! And then came the TWIST! Yes that’s right, this romance novel had a twist!! Multiple even, but I guessed the smaller of the two.

Overall: I enjoyed this and I have a feeling it’s going to be a favorite for many due to its creativity and uniqueness. If you’re looking for an engrossing and entertaining read with some deeper, more emotional elements, then I highly recommend picking this up in July!

I loved this book!! Katherine Center is one of my favorites and she did it again! Thankful to have gotten this early!! I will continue reading her books as soon as they release!!!!

This is my first Katherine Center book and won’t be my last!
Sadie is a struggling artist who specializes in face portraits. She also has a hereditary brain condition which needs surgery. Said surgery impacts her ability to “see” faces.
She can still see her beloved dog, Peanut’s face but he falls ill, and she rushes him to the vet. The vet is an assumingly handsome man named Oliver, she assumes based on his gait, scent, and other markers but she can't see his face due to her face blindness.
In her condo building, she runs into her neighbor, Joe, quite a few times and they begin to help each other out of jams. Some are quite hilarious!
Add in an evil stepsister & stepmother, detached father, memories of a deceased mother, condo building drama and a witty best friend.
I did feel the medical explanations and hospital stays were a bit much at the beginning (first 20% of the book) but set the scene for the seriousness of Sadie’s condition.

I loved Dr. Nicole and her advice! And I loved the ending even more!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review of this book!

First let me say, I am a HUGE Katherine Center fan. This book had a VERY creative concept and brought attention to a condition I had no idea existed, but was not as high on my list as some of her others.

Struggling artist Sadie Montgomery quiet literally lost sight of life in an instant. After getting promising news regarding her art (finally!) her ability to visualize faces is lost…. Which proves to be quiet the problem being as she is a portrait artist. Sadie continues to take hits, like dealing with the scumbag neighbor dating everyone in her building, her dog getting unexpectedly sick (that Vet though) and SURPRISE her evil stepsister showing back up in her life. One thing she did NOT expect to find was a herself in a love triangle with the Vet and Scumbag (maybe he isn’t so bad after all?) neighbor.

The book was a fun easy read, I just think some of the characters/relationships weren’t fully played out or well developed (mainly Sadie’s family). BUT I really did love learning about the condition Sadie had.

This book was so heart warming and fun. I was a big fan of The Bodyguard and was so excited to get the opportunity to an advanced copy of Hello Stranger. I loved the humor in the book (“gotcha therapy”…hysterical) and I must say I am in desperate need of a pajanket.

I loved this overall story line. I love how Katherine wrote both of these main characters so they were both so real and likeable. I was also very attached to the side characters, whether I loved them or hated them. In particular I thought the evolution of Lucinda through the eyes of Sadie was very well done.

We’ll be excited to stock Hello Stranger at Westsider Books this summer!

Sadie is a struggling portrait artist who finally has a chance at her big break. Before she can celebrate this opportunity, she finds out she has to have brain surgery to remove a small brain bleed. An unfortunate side effect of the surgery, Sadie ends up with acquired prosopagnosia: face blindness. Sadie has to figure out how to create a portrait without the ability to see any faces. While juggling the hot veterinarian and Mr. Helpful in her building, Sadie has to figure out how to save her career.

Katherine Center won my heart over several years ago with Things You Save in a Fire. Hello Stranger was a delight. I was laughing out loud at Sadie's relatable cynicism and sense of humor. As someone who hates telling others why they're struggling, I totally understood Sadie.

I recently read another book that dealt with developmental prosopagnosia and it did not handle it with care; it felt like a tool to tell an interesting story. In Hello Stranger, however, it was handled with care and clearly well researched. It helped paint a picture (heh) of a challenge many readers may not be familiar with.

I wish this book had more romance. I loved swoony Joe and needed more of the hot vet... but overall loved seeing Sadie's journey to find self love and acceptance.

My first Katherine Center book and it won’t be my last. Lots of hope and happiness it was funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Face Blindness is something I had never heard of and it was interesting to me to read about it.

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

With every book I read from Center, the more and more I fall in love with her writing and stories. There are few books that can keep me up way past my bedtime, and this was one of those…I just couldn’t stop reading it, even as the tears kept filling my eyes!

Sadie is a struggling portrait artist who finally got her first big break. She is a finalist in an upcoming portrait competition and has six weeks to create a new portrait for her entry. But when she learns about needing an elective yet emergency brain surgery, the timing couldn’t be worse…especially when she wakes up from surgery with Prosopagnosia, also known as ‘face blindness’ or the inability to see faces. Not only does she feel unable to complete her contest entry now, but she can’t even recognize the faces in her everyday life, even of those that mean the most to her. How will she navigate this ‘new normal’?

Center’s books always give off warm and cozy vibes. But she also always does an amazing job teaching me something. Hello Stranger makes us think about what aspects of the people around us do we truly see, and what parts do we ‘see’ simply because we expect to find them? She also challenges us to think about learning and choosing to see the world around us in new and beautiful ways.

And can we just talk about her ‘Note from the Author’! I mean that alone gets five stars from me! It is the perfect ode to romance novels and their importance as a genre…I couldn’t have summed up why I love these types of books any more perfectly.

“Romance novels, rom-coms, happy love stories—they all run on a blissful sense that we’re moving toward something better. The clues writers drop in romance novels don’t give you things to dread. They give you things to look forward to. This, right here—more than anything else—is why people love them. The banter, the kissing, the tropes, even the spice…that’s all just extra. It’s the structure—that ‘predictable’ structure—that does it. Knowing you’re heading towards a happy ending lets you relax and look forward to better things ahead. And there’s a name for what you ‘re feeling when you do that. Hope.”

Highly recommend this for fans of deeply emotional and character-driven stories full of growth and learning and love.

5 stars

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the e-ARC!!

Katherine Center has done it again! I just recently started reading her books and I have to say that I am a big fan! I would definitely add this to my bookshelf and definitely recommend it to my library for their collection.

This book felt light and fun like Katherine Center always does, but it also had a deeper story and meaning than usual. I loved the cheeky humor through out the book that kept it from getting too tense. <spoiler> As someone who lost her mother during childhood, this is one of the few fiction books I've read that gets that particular experience of grief right. <spoiler>

I'm a long-time devoted fan of this author, and I always eagerly anticipate her new releases. I also *love* that her publisher (@StMartinsPress) sends out e-ARCs so far in advance so I can enjoy her writing ASAP. (Thank you!!) I was proud of myself for at least waiting until the YEAR of publication to get to Hello Stranger, and rather perfectly, I decided to save this for an airplane read and it really hit the spot! I finished approximately the first 40% on the plane and then binged the rest when I awoke with jetlag the next couple of mornings. I finished this book with copious tears streaming down my face tangled in bedsheets at about 3:45 in the morning on vacation so it's hard to say whether any fatigue contributed to my emotional outburst or whether it was just the way these sweet characters burrowed themselves into my soul.

It did take me a little bit longer than in her previous books to really sink into the pace of this one, even though I was fascinated and hooked. The first half sets things up in a unique way with Sadie & her acute prosopagnosia (face perception blindness) - all of the other characters become much more clear as to their significance to the story later on. I really, really love Katherine Center's main female characters with all of their imperfections and thoughts and friendships and Sadie was certainly no exception. As the reader, I had a guess at where the story was going but I also wasn't completely 100% sure so there was no doubt that I was flipping pages quickly seeing how everything would turn out at the end.

This story was full of heart, was a bit reminiscent of a fairy tale scenario (we'll say Cinderella because of the evil stepsister) at times, and it made me smile and cry and laugh and gasp and really what more can you ask for? I am certain this one will be another smash hit for this author this summer. I, for one, need to reread a few pages that were hard to read through the tears and sleepiness at the end :)

I absolutely loved this story. Sadie was a hilarious, kind, generous, and humble character, and Joe was wonderful. I did not see the big twist coming, at all, but the ending left me feeling all warm and fuzzy, the way a romance should. Definitely recommend if you are looking for a fun, cozy, easy romance read.

I felt this book got better as it went on. In the beginning it took a while for me to get hooked, but once I was hooked… I was HOOKED. This book has the perfect mix of romance and surprise along with a little bit of a thrill.