Since I read Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center almost four years ago (ah!), I’ve been so excited to read anything by the author. Her stories tend to be very different from one another, which is refreshing as a reader, so each story really feels new and not recycled. Center’s latest, Hello Stranger, features a portrait artist who is all of a sudden overcome with a case of face blindness due to a head injury, and that right there has a premise that sucks me right in.

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.

I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read of Center’s so far, but Hello Stranger missed the mark a bit for me. I was so interested in the premise, especially because face blindness is something I only recently learned existed, but this story just felt clunky and wrapped up too quickly.

What didn’t work for me

Sadie: While exploring the dynamics of having a portrait artist all of a sudden develop face blindness was interesting, and unlike anything I’d ever seen, I really didn’t care for Sadie at all. She was selfish, self-centred and didn’t really appreciate when people were willing to help her out. I know she had some trauma as a child, but she just acted way too immature for her age. I don’t really know what the love interest saw in her, and I had a really hard time feeling sympathetic for her. If she would have talked to the Portrait Society, I’m sure they would have deferred her entrance or something, too. I just feel like everything was a little too far-fetched for me.

The family dynamics: Speaking of far-fetched, I usually love Katherine Center’s way of developing characters and the relationships around them, but Sadie’s family was full-out unbelievable. It was like Cinderella in real life, but happening right in front of her father, who is a smart, educated doctor. Piper wasn’t really necessary to the story, either. I could’ve done without this storyline at all, especially the way it resolves.

What I liked

The ending: I knew there was going to be a twist of some kind, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t fully expecting it to end the way it did. I liked that I was surprised by it, but I wish things weren’t wrapped up quite as nicely as fast as they did.

The main love interest: Thank goodness for him. He was really likeable and made me want to continue reading the story. I would have almost preferred to read the story through his point of view (especially to see why he liked Sadie so much).

3 STARS

“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.” —Katharine Center, Hello Stranger

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.