Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Ambrose Young and Fern Taylor's book




Making Faces

By Amy Harmon

Book Blurb:
Ambrose Young was beautiful. He was tall and muscular, with hair that touched his shoulders and eyes that burned right through you. The kind of beautiful that graced the covers of romance novels, and Fern Taylor would know. She'd been reading them since she was thirteen. But maybe because he was so beautiful he was never someone Fern thought she could have...until he wasn't beautiful anymore.

Making Faces is the story of a small town where five young men go off to war, and only one comes back. It is the story of loss. Collective loss, individual loss, loss of beauty, loss of life, loss of identity. It is the tale of one girl's love for a broken boy, and a wounded warrior's love for an unremarkable girl. This is a story of friendship that overcomes heartache, heroism that defies the common definitions, and a modern tale of Beauty and the Beast, where we discover that there is a little beauty and a little beast in all of us.

Making Faces is the first book of 2014 that has me reeling with emotion. In fact I can't ever remember that book that had me more emotional. I need to get a grip. It has been a few hours since finishing and I have yet to think of anything else and when I think of certain scenes, I'm back to dabbing my eyes again. Making Faces blew. Me. Away. 

Ambrose and Fern may have been the main protagonists in Making Faces but Fern's cousin Bailey was the hero of the story. Bailey has muscular dystrophy and Fern and Bailey are the best of friends and have been their entire life. Making Faces deals with so many aspects of life I don't know where to begin. 

There isn't a thesaurus big enough to list the adjectives I could use to describe this story. Heart-wrenching, beautiful, and powerful are the best I can come up with. The story deals of friendship, family, loss, love, forgiveness, self esteem, death, healing, anger and even a little bit of religion but don't let that scare you away as it is NOT a preachy book. The parts referring to religion are segments that are fitting for the story and are not simply written in for the added preaching opportunity. Fern has wonderful parents and her father just happens to be a preacher so it was all very relevant. 

The book blurb really sums up well what the story is about so I really wanted to focus my review on the emotions and impact Making Faces had on me. I had never heard of the author Amy Harmon before but she has just moved up my "author to watch list". I need to go and see what else she has written because she is one hell of a story teller and a writer. Pure talent. Don't even get me started on the childhood flashbacks she wrote because I am about to cry again. 

Too late, I just saw the book trailer and I'm tearing up again. 

Teasers: Kites or Balloons, pancakes at midnight, "Do you feel that?", Hercules, BS

NOTE: There is no heat level rating for this book because nothing went passed kissing