Hello Stranger

I was so excited to read this book, but was sadly quite disappointed. Outside of the obvious editing and polishing that needs to still be completed with the book I just could not get into this. If you're looking for a book that is quick and lighthearted (for the most part) I do think this could fit the bill. If you're looking for a romance, you may want to keep looking.

This book is about a struggling portrait artist with a problematic family life. She suffers from a stroke and needs to undergo brain surgery. She is left with acquired face blindness after just receiving word of her big break.

Some things I liked about the book:
- I loved that they're bringing attention to face blindness. I honestly didn't know that it was even a real thing prior to this book.
- One of my favorite quotes from the book highlights some of the ridiculousness that is medical statistics: “It's life-threatening” he said, “but it can be cured. The survival rate is thirty to seventy percent.” Thirty to seventy percent? What a useless piece of information. – there were a few quotes in the book that made me laugh out loud, but this one was most memorable.

Things that didn't work for me:
- the characters and dialogue did not have much depth to them.
- I truly did not see a point in adding some of the components of her family life into the story. I think it was to tie in her mother and give her more of a background, but it just did not work at all for me.
- At times I felt as though I was being force fed information on face blindness. It did not seem to come naturally in the book at all. I appreciate that Katherine Center spent a lot of time researching this topic and wanted to give as much information about it as she could – I just didn't like the delivery.
- The thing that probably upset me the most was there was basically no romance in the book. Sure there was sort of a romance starting, but the whole book was basically about her going to a coffee shop, trying to paint but feeling sory for herself, and weirdly planning a wedding in her head with someone she basically didn't know (oh right and denying her feelings for another person she also basically doesn't know).

This book was kindly given to me by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.