This IS NOT my 2024 best of list. I am just playing catch up for Wendy’s TBR Challenge. In a conscious effort to post on all the TBR topics for 2024, I put together a quick post for the previous 5 months.
Reading Note 80: August – Everyday Heroes
Hello, Stranger by Katherine Center
I became a bit obsessed with Katherine Center this year. I have yet to read one that tanked. In Hello Stranger the protagonist Sadie is a portrait artist who after winning a place in a national competition has a critical head injury when she has a fall in the middle of the street. When she comes to, the result of the fall is that she has aphasia – face blindness. Which, as a portrait artist, is a bit of an issue. While she is trying to navigate her new world, Sadie meets her grumpy neighbour Joe who somehow helps her through the various issues she is experiencing. And of course, they fall in love but not without their own issues.
Sadie has so many circumstances that go against her. An absent father, an evil step-sister, an ambivalent step-mother. A friend who seems supportive but is not at all, sometimes bordering on cruel. When Sadie gets into the portrait competitiion, Sue says to her “You’ve been tragically failing at life for years and years! We have to celebrate!” Sadie thinks “Tragically failing at life seemed a bit harsh. But fine. She wasn’t wrong.”
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