Add Hello Stranger to my favorites list! Katherine Center has a knack for creating and exposing beautiful growth in her characters. There is not a main character she has written that I am not rooting for and love so much! This book explores prosopagnosia and the impacts it has on daily life. I knew very little about it but loved learning more! Sadie beautifully represented this diagnosis and how so many of us take for granted that we just automatically recognize people! I had a physical and early listening copy and enjoyed transitioning back and forth and was completely swept away into this story.

There were so many amazing and thoughtful takeaways, so many times that I laughed out loud, and so many times where I clutched my heart in understanding of these characters. I loved this story and Katherine Center you are a QUEEN!

Below are two of my favorite quotes from the book. I will think about Sadie for some time to come. Thank you so much @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the early physical copy and @macmillianaudio for the early listening copy! You HAVE to grab your copy out 7/11!

“Seeing the world differently helps you see things not just that other people can’t- but that you yourself never could if you weren’t so lucky. It lets you make your own rules. Color outside your own lines. Allow yourself another way of seeing.”

“We’re all so limited and disappointing and so, so wrong. Much of the time. Maybe even most of the time. We’re all so steeped in our own confirmation bias. We’re all so busy seeing what we expect to see. But we have our moments, too. Moments when we see that tire blowout and stop to help. Moments when we pay for the person behind us in the drive through. Or offer up our seat to a stranger. Or compliment someone’s earrings. Or apologize. Sometimes we really are the best versions of ourselves. I see that about us. And I’m determined to keep seeing that about us. Because that might be the truest thing I know. The more good things you look for, the more you find.”

4.75 stars!

I loved this story! I do not want to spoil any of it for anyone who may read it so I will not even attempt to describe the story!

I learned so much about something I had never heard of! I was delighted! I was surprised! I was cheering for the main character and was very invested in her story!

What an adorably fun read! Sadie Montgomery is a struggling portrait artist on the brink of her first big break. But after an unfortunate incident that ended with her needing brain surgery, she loses the ability to see actual faces.

How can a portrait artist do a portrait if she can’t see a face?!

What follows is a beautiful story of growth and finding your true self. Of managing expectations and allowing people to help you when you need it most. Friendship and love, and believing in yourself most of all.

Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the digital copy for my review

This was my first Katherine Center but definitely not my last!

5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hello Stranger is going to be another win for Katherine Center. It is an "easy read" and would make a great book to read on vacation. Closed door romance and a creative story that makes you want to keep reading. It's a hopeful story filled with anticipation. Pick this one up and add it to your summer TBR when it publishes July 11.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy.

Sadie is a portrait artist who was just selected as a top-10 finalist in an elite art competition. But she has an accident which results in her needing to get brain surgery. When she comes out of surgery, she has Prosopagnosia (aka face blindness) which makes it incredibly hard to do her job.

This felt like a retelling of Cinderella with a bad twist. Sadie is the FMC. Her father is absent after her mother died and he re-married, bringing around an evil stepmother and stepsister. (Cue a ridiculous bullying back-story throughout Sadie's childhood with her stepsister). Additionally, her one-dimensional BFF is tremendously inconsiderate until the last 15% of the book. The only redeeming characters are Joe and Mr. & Mrs. Kim.

I so wanted to love this book, but I found myself annoyed with Sadie's woe-was-me attitude. I can't begin to understand dealing with face-blindness after not having it, but I found myself unable to be empathetic to her situation. Had she just TOLD people what was going on, everything would have been 100% easier. I also thought it was a totally predictable ending, which is fine in a rom-com, but I saw this one coming from miles away.

Overall, the middle 25% and the last 15% of the book were my favorite. Once she got out of her own way and asked for help, things got a little better. But it was a bit of a roller coaster throughout.

As always, thank you so much to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy of Hello Stranger in exchange for an honest review!

Every time I pick up a new book by Katherine Center, I’ve come to expect joy. In 2020, when we interviewed her for the Unabridged Podcast upon the release of What You Wish For (shameless shoutout—you can listen here: https://www.unabridgedpod.com/post/134-whatyouwishfor-katherinecenter), Center talked explicitly about working toward joy, both in her life and her writing. She said, “[O]ne of the things that I really wanted to write about in this book in particular, like the kind of the place where I started with the story, was I wanted to write about joy. . . . [W]hen you find the right story for you, whatever that story is that you need at that particular moment in your life, it's so satisfying that it feels like joy.”

With Center’s new book Hello Stranger, that feeling of joy was in full effect for me. At times, I was giddy as I read about Sadie Montgomery’s fierce attempts to wrestle back control over her life, her relationships, and her career—to find joy in the face of adversity.

Sadie is a portrait artist on the cusp of finding the success she’s dreamed of ever since the tragic death of her mother—also a portrait artist—when she was a child. Her relationship with her father has never been what she wanted, and her relationships with her stepmother and stepsister are downright confrontational. But she has a good friend, Sue, and a sweet, aging dog she loves and a place to live and work (thanks to some gracious rule breaking from Sue’s parents, her unofficial landlords).

And then she falls one day, merely walking across the street, and everything changes.

Sadie finds out that she needs immediate brain surgery, and while the surgery is successful, it results in prosopagnosia. Face blindness. She can’t recognize anyone’s face, even her own, and she certainly can’t paint portraits, which means that the art competition on which she was counting is going to be a real challenge.

The situation unfurls from there, of course, complicated by a potential romance with her dog’s veterinarian and a burgeoning friendship with the superficially-jerky-but-maybe-not neighbor who turns out to be pretty helpful when she needs it.

In retrospect, there were a few elements of the plot that stretched my credulity just a bit, but they didn’t impact my reading experience at all. The story here is gorgeous and sometimes heart wrenching but ultimately joyful. Center considers the impact of Sadie’s face blindness on her life and her career and her relationships with great sensitivity, making excellent use of the need for Sadie to see things differently both literally and figuratively.

I loved Hello Stranger.

Y’all…I’ve been agonizing over how to write this review because I really don’t want to be a Debbie Downer. I love Katherine Center and I’ve enjoyed all her other books that I’ve read…

But I really didn’t like this one 🫣 Yes, there were some good moments, like the sweet ending with a fun little twist, but overall it just frustrated me. I know I’ll be in the minority not liking this one, and I’m so bummed!

Some of my biggest issues were:

1. There was hardly any romance. Sadie learning how to adjust to her new normal after having acquired Prosopagnosia (face blindness) dominated the plot. It did, however, make for an interesting story since she is a portrait artist that can no longer see faces. It was just too much of Sadie in her head, and it got repetitive.
2. I didn’t care for Sadie as our MC. She annoyed me 😬 With Sadie fearing the unknown, she was often negative towards everything. She was quick to jump to conclusions and assume the worst of people which really irritated me. I think it was meant to be funny once she found out the truth, but it didn’t come off that way to me 🤷🏻‍♀️
3. Her evil stepsister was a bit over the top. It was really just depressing reading what all she did.
4. Her so called BFF, Sue. She forgets several times that Sadie can’t see faces…seriously?!! What a terrible friend.

Sadie did eventually have some growth as she discovers more about herself and her family. And thanks to her therapy and a stranger in a face blindness forum, she finds a way to have a more positive outlook on life.

I just want to hug Sadie. Getting the chance at a career achievement of a lifetime, finally proving to her father she chose the right path is in her grasp, until she wakes up in a hospital bed. After having a seizure in a crosswalk, with a brain bleed that needs surgery, Sadie realizes she can no longer see anyone’s face. The worst diagnosis possible for a portrait artist.
During these 6 weeks Sadie meets two different love interest, and attempts to reconcile her family, her friends and choose between 2 men she cannot see.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. Katherine Center, your writing captures me everytime.

Release Date: July 11, 2023

There are so many reasons I shouldn't have enjoyed this book as much as I did.

😕It has:
- �a frustrating main character
- �a predictable and implausible plot
- �a couple of secondary characters that are one dimensional

❤️But, It also had:
- �a very lovable male MC
- �incredible audio narration
- �a satisfying ending

Turns out that I was just in the right mood for Katherine Center, and, as she says in her author's note at the end, anticipation plays a huge role in our enjoyment of stories.

Waiting for the MCs to figure out their misunderstanding kept me listening even when I had other books I was supposed to be reading! To me, that’s the sign of an enjoyable read! ☺️

🎧And I can’t neglect to mention the stellar audio narration by @pattimurin, who, IMHO,
should be narrating way more audiobooks!

Thank you to the @stmartinspress and @netgalley for my ARC of this book.
Thank you also to @macmillan.audio for my ALC.

katherine center becoming an autobuy author for me fr

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.

Katherine Center has another winner with Hello Stranger. First, I’d like to thank NetGalley for sharing an advance copy for me to read! I read my first book by Katherine Center last year. Every title by her is terrific and I think it might be because each heroine is unique, there are no “that character is just like this one.” In Hello Stranger, Sadie is a very talented and fun person who has experienced some adversity in her life. It looks like her luck is turning with a possible career changing opportunity. Yet, Sadie has a medical event, an evil stepsister and an indifferent father and stepmother to deal with at the same time. There’s also those two different men she’s met recently. Hurry, don’t wait, to order your copy of Hello Stranger.

I *inhaled* this book in one sitting. Katherine Center sprinkles her books with humor, swoon, heart, and real relationships with just enough suspension of reality to make it fun. This books reads like a 90’s Nora Ephron rom com classic that you could watch over and over again and never get bored. Learning about prosopagnosia (face-blindness) was a new concept to me, and it added an interesting element to the story told only from Sadie’s point of view, where everyone was a stranger to her when she couldn't recognize faces. I was obsessed with Joe, and how he was such a golden retriever hero (ya know, because he loves animals *wink*). I laughed, I cried, I felt my heart melt into goo – everything you could want in a romantic comedy book. I want to reread this book a thousand times, and if you’re an audiobook lover, Patti Murin brings so much life to her narration of this story.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio for advanced copies of this book.

Katherine Center books always leave me feeling happy and I think that’s a really special quality for an author to possess. Her books always have interesting and unique plots that make them hard to put down.

I loved the plot of this one. Our main character, Sadie, is a portrait artist who ends up with acquired “face blindness” after brain surgery. You can imagine this makes her job difficult. Her doctor thinks it will *probably* resolve but no guarantees. She generally feels like her life is falling apart which I felt was pretty understandable under the circumstances.

This is definitely a romance but Sadie’s maturity and personal growth are the stars of this book.

Katherine Center fans will love this and I think if this is a reader’s first experience with her they will be sure to pick up more.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Sadie is a struggling portrait artist who finds out that she is a finalist in a very fancy National Portrait competition. She runs out to the store in her favourite dress to buy some wine to celebrate. She never gets to drink the wine.

This story, like so many of Katherine Center’s stories, starts with a tragedy. Due to some swelling in her brain, Sadie can no longer see faces. This is a real disorder known as prosopsgnosia. How will she ever paint again if she can’t put together faces? How will she recognize her friends and family? And will this be permanent? What about the gorgeous veterinarian who takes care of her dog? Can she really trust her brain to be making good decisions when it’s struggling to make sense of her new world? What about the guy who lives in her building who takes care of everyone else, if you know what I mean? ;) ;)

I love Katherine Center’s writing and in her Author’s Note on this book, she wrote two things that really struck me. She says that she writes books about people overcoming hard things and that sometimes overcoming hard things does not look like walking again or seeing face is perfectly. She acknowledges that overcoming does not mean everything goes back to how it was before. The second thing she said was that romance novels have often been labelled as predictable. She suggested that instead of predictable we use the following quote. So for you, Katherine Center, I agree whole heartedly that “this story created fantastic anticipation,” and I enjoyed every second of it. This may be my new favourite of yours! Also I am and will always be #teamweasel.

Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

This book kept popping up as a book that I would like, so I was excited to read it! I enjoyed the book and becoming a part of Sadie’s journey. The twist was fairly easy to guess (as with most rom-coms), but it was a unique journey to get there. I loved watching Sadie grow as a character and deal with some difficult scenarios and medical complications. I was unfamiliar with the medical condition and thought the author did a great job weaving it into Sadie’s story. I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend to my friends!

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this copy to review!

One word - Obsessed! I love this book so much. I love the characters, the unique plot, and the details. Everything about it, I love it! It's one of the best reads I have had in 2023 so far. I kind of guessed what was going on, which doesn't bother me as there were plenty of other little surprises. Sadie and her crush have the cutest, most intimate relationship. It was so pure, and for Sadie, it was 100% only off of emotional attraction.

Hello Stranger is about so much more than the romance. There is family trauma, learning to trust yourself, growth, and overcoming fear. I had to read this one in one sitting, and I absolutely could not put it down. Katherine Center made the characters quirky and easy to love. Her writing is fun, and she goes into great detail to place you in the characters' shoes. My first Katherine Center read, and I will be moving her other books up on my tbr!!

🎆HELLO STRANGER by Katherine Center🎆

📆PUB DATE: July 11th, 2023
➡️Swipe for synopsis
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Format: E-book
Read if you like:
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family drama
❤️Happy books
🐶Very cute dogs

Portrait artist Sadie Montgomery gets selected to participate in an art competition, one that her late mother also was in. When she gets in an accident that results in prosopagnosia (aka face blindness) she struggles to paint any faces. While recovering she meets her dog’s new handsome veterinarian and her neighbor and she’s suddenly dating two people (love triangle?🫣)

Sadie’s family was absolutely awful to her, to the point where it was just unrealistic and overdone. Sadie was a bit immature and overall unlikeable. Without spoiling anything, I don’t understand how the plot twist wasn’t discovered by either person earlier in the book. If you can suspend disbelief, the last 25% of this book was actually really cute and heartwarming and bumped my rating up to 3 stars. I’m glad I didn’t DNF, but the first 75% was a bit of a slog to get through.

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy of Hello Stranger in exchange for an honest review!

While this book wasn't anything revolutionary rom-com wise, I absolutely had a ball reading this and finished it in a day. Some aspects were a bit frustrating (at times I wanted to take the Sadie by the shoulders and shake her because the reasons behind certain things were SO obvious), but overall it was a sweet and fluffy story with some deeper, more serious familial undertones. I appreciate the author doing actual research and including an Author's Note on facial blindness, as it easily could have been something that played off as cheesy and depthless. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone looking for a short, cute rom-com that will make you feel the feelings!

This was a super cute and fun read with a plot concept I hadn't read before! I did guess the "plot twist" fairly early on but it made reading the book more fun for me to kind of laugh along as the main character missed many, what felt like obvious, signs. This is a fun read that I think most people would enjoy!

I read The Bodyguard a few months back, so I was excited to read another Katherine Center book! It started out strong for me, and had a short lull, but I overall loved it! I liked the science/medical stuff (albeit weird in a book) and the “twist” I definitely predicted very early on. I thought Sadie was a relatable and funny character, and Joe was so sweet!