Hello Stranger by Katherine Center. 4.25 stars. Romance. 323 pages, 2023

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.

from Goodreads

Hello Stranger is the latest feel good novel by Katherine Center. Sadie is an artist in her 20s living in a not-fit-to-rent apartment on a dime. She’s just reached the finals of a prestigious portrait competition, when an accident and subsequent surgery cause prosopagnodia, an inability to ‘see’ faces.

Sadie’s family story was the most moving part of the story for me. Her mom was gone, and she had an evil stepmother and stepsister to make her miserable while her father looked away. Needless to say, I was rooting hard for Sadie.

There was a love interest or two, a loyal best friend, and the realities of her new life with face blindness. This novel was warm and fuzzy in all the right places, while also letting real life shine through.

I loved it. There were, perhaps, one or two more coincidences than necessary, but at the end I was left feeling happy and satisfied.

Have you read a book by Katherine Center? Are they great?

“The fact that you don’t want me to help you really makes me want to help you.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”