Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Hello Stranger

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Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

63 reviews

mamawantsbooks's review

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Katherine Center has absolutely done it once again. Hello Stranger revolves around Sadie, a portrait artist who after an accident and consequent surgery develops face blindness. Not super awesome considering she has an important competition that depends on a portrait she’s made from a live model. Throw in some romance shenanigans involving her vet and the always helpful but possibly serial romancer Joe from her building and 🤌🏽. A cozy and clean romance that reminds me of Meg Cabot’s Boy series in the best way possible. Katherine is ruining my life by quickly becoming a favorite author with an auto-buy/read factor.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC and the chance to read this before it releases in July!

Content Warnings

gailcooksandreads's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Katherine Center is an auto-read author for me, so when the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of Hello Stranger came to my attention, I took immediate advantage.

Sadie Montgomery is a struggling portrait artist who finally lands a break by receiving a highly coveted invitation to compete in a portrait competition.

Before she’s able to start the portrait for the competition, she has to have surgery, which results in losing her ability to see faces. While hopefully temporary, this makes her ability to paint a portrait in time for the competition – as well as her ability to recognize people – extremely difficult.

Meanwhile, Sadie’s dog gets sick, and upon bringing him to the vet, Sadie falls in love with a seemingly handsome veterinarian (whose face she cannot piece together but has a “Olympically handsome gait”) who eventually asks her on a date. She’s hesitant to start a relationship though as she doesn’t want him, or anyone else, to discover her face blindness. She also reluctantly develops an unlikely friendship with her annoying neighbor, Joe, who keeps showing up whether she likes it or not, all the while keeping her face blindness a secret.

Generally, I find Center’s rom-coms well-written and engrossing, and it doesn’t typically take me a long time for me to become invested in her characters. I found Hello Stranger to be somewhat – but not entirely – similar.

While I felt invested in Sadie’s plight, the male characters felt underdeveloped, and I had a hard time getting invested in the romance aspects of the story. This may have been purposeful on the behalf of the author as Sadie is unable to piece together their faces and does not have a full picture of them (so why should the reader?), I found this to be a drawback.

Also, it seemed like it took about half of the book for things to get going romance-wise, which made the story feel slow.

Overall, Hello Stranger has an interesting premise that is well researched and articulated, but the romance aspects fell a bit flat for me. I will continue to pick up everything that Katherine Center writes.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings

maggieparedesauthor's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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