Okay, overall I really REALLY enjoyed this one, I absolutely sped through it... It was sweet and easy in the best way. It was also my very first Katherine Center book, and will NOT be my last!

However, there was a fair amount of suspension of disbelief needed with some of it... Just the way her best friend was treating her, it felt like she was one way and then the complete opposite--like, she was thoughtful and then completely inconsiderate--and her sister was just WAY harsher than seemed possible. There were a few bumps along the road like these that pulled me out of it and had me thinking a little too much... BUT it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story, and I truly loved this book.

Katherine Center's latest rom-dram, "Hello Stranger" was silly and sweet. I highly recommend to fans of Beth O'Leary, Emily Henry, and any of Center's previous work.

The novel follows a portrait artist as she navigates her love life, family life, and professional life after contracting face blindness - a complete inability to recognize faces.

Everything here was cute: the plot, our heroine's dog, our heroine's dog's veterinarian. The entire book. I especially loved Center's author's note on the power of romance novels at the end of the novel. The best kind of cheesy; I loved it.

I loved the premise of this book! It was really cute. It didn't capture me as much as I would have liked, but it was a cute romance!

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

I love Katherine Center; her writing style and concepts, her approach to romance and sense of humor, the hidden messages in her novels and her focus around overcoming hardships and creating uplifting stories. The Author’s Note in this book was simply amazing and loved getting some additional insight on her inspiration.

In summary, I liked Hello Stranger that is a book about a young portrait artist who has to have brain surgery and when she wakes up she realizes she can no longer see faces. The concept is super interesting and I liked the author’s approach towards prosopagnosia and art. A fast and enjoyable read overall even though I saw what was coming from the first few chapters. Not my favorite of her novels but still a feel-good book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!

This one took me a little bit to get into, the first 40% felt super repetitive to me. We find out what happens after surgery and then it’s like her life is on repeat and we see her do the same thing over and over. Once it got past the 40% I flew through it! It got so good, it was just such a sweet turn! The third act issue hurt my heart for Sadie but after it all and get new outlook on life made me happy for her! The last 60% really had me and I adored it, I was so happy to see Sadie thrive and see her life fall apart but also come back together!

Sadie Montgomery is a struggling portrait artist looking for her big break. When she finds out she is a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition, she feels she can finally make her Father proud that she has chosen this career over following in his footsteps and becoming a physician. Only weeks before her portrait submission due date, Sadie undergoes emergency surgery and develops face blindness, which is not the ideal outcome for a portrait artist. On top of Sadie trying to figure out new ways of painting and recognizing all of the strangers around her, she develops feelings for two recent acquaintances – Joe, her neighbor who is not as he appears to be, and Dr. Oliver Addison, her dog Peanut’s sweet veterinarian. Hello Stranger is a story about standing up for what you deserve, creating new paths for yourself, and finding love amidst the chaos.

I was immediately drawn to the premise of this book. I knew very little about face blindness, so learning how someone in that situation would navigate their new normal was interesting. Unfortunately, a few things didn’t work for me, and I didn’t end up loving it as much as I’d hoped. Every interaction with her stepsister Parker was too over the top. I found the amount and severity of the awful things she did to her very unbelievable. It would’ve been easier to digest if only one or two bigger situations were discussed. The other thing that didn’t work for me was the ending. I wasn’t surprised by the reveal; I immediately picked up on it pretty early on. Adding a few different situations into the middle of the story could’ve remedied it. I wanted to be left second-guessing myself and hoping for one ending over the other. Overall, I’d still recommend this book to anyone interested in the premise or who enjoys the author’s previous works.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Katherine Center for an eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This was freaking AMAZING. I knew what was going to happen. Any self-respecting romance reader has the beats down to a science, but this is the ONE and ONLY time when the miscommunication trope didn't make me angry one iota. I liked it. It made the story fun and totally fit with the plot.

I didn't read the blurb of this before reading and I think that helped certain plot points be a total surprise. I rooted for Sadie so hard and loved her so much! Her family drama gave me total Cinderella vibes and I'm a Cinderella stan.

This was my first book by Katherine Center, but it won't be my last.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

How would your life change if one day you woke up and couldn't see? Sadie suddenly finds herself living in a world with no faces. Sure, she could see... just not faces. As an aspiring artist, she begins to navigate life through what she hopes will just be a temporary minor inconvenience.

This love story really created fantastic anticipation. (Iykyk) Hello stranger is jammed packed with all the favorite things: family drama, falling in love, best friends, and overcoming trials. The twists and turns kept me grasping for more and more, then wrapped up by the perfect grand finale!

Read if you like: love triangles, evil step-families, aspiring artists, characters you can fall in love with, and overcoming challenges.

Katherine Center never disappoints! Her ability to write emotional stories laced with humour has made her an auto-read author for me. Hello Stranger might just be my favourite of her books.

Portrait artist Sadie Montgomery has just learned of the big break she’s been looking for – she’s a finalist in an upcoming competition that will give her the exposure she’s been waiting for. But then life changes in a minute.

Following brain surgery to correct a recently discovered congenital anomaly, Sadie is no longer able to recognize faces. Faces look like something from a Picasso painting. She’s told this condition may be temporary, but the competition is only six weeks away. Will her ability to see faces correctly return in time?

To make matters worse, her senior dog is ill which forces her out in the real world to the veterinarian where she meets the good-looking new Dr. Of course she can’t see his face, but the rest of him looks great and his gait is fantastic. Then there is Joe a man who lives in her building who initially seems to be a womanizer – could her initial impressions of this man be wrong?

There are some very beautiful moments in this book and a twist I didn’t see coming. The characters are well-developed and highly-likeable. Sadie’s backstory is compelling and the reader cannot help but root for her.

I highly recommend this book to those readers who enjoy contemporary romance. I cannot wait to read the author’s next book.

4.5 stars (rounded up to 5).

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, but the thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

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.