Making Faces
Young Adult
From Amazon.com
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.
Foxy's Review:
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P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S.
I feel inadequate to write a review that will do this story the justice it deserves.
Absolutely my favorite book of the year! I deliberately read Making Faces slowly to make it last as long as possible. Being immersed in the beauty of this story allowed me to go from laughing to crying to giggling and back to bawling my eyes out. It’s a rare find when a book can make you FEEL.
Reading Making Faces reminded me of how I felt when I read Painted Faces. It evoked all the insecurities I have about the question, “Could I be with someone who didn’t fit the mold of what society considers ‘normal’?” Am I strong enough like Fern and Freda to love men who aren’t physically perfect?
“God has given you one face and you make yourself another.”-Hamlet
Can society stop seeing the exterior and see the interior of a person?
“When you really look at them, you stop seeing a perfect nose or straight teeth. You stop seeing the acne scar or the dimple in the chin. Those things start to blur, and suddenly you see them, the colors, the life inside the shell, and beauty takes on a whole new meaning.“
Three main characters graced the pages of this book each one equally important.
“Everybody is a main character to someone.” -Bailey
Fern has become one of my favorite heroines. The other day a friend asked me if I could be any female book character who would I be…I would be Fern. I loved her grace and passion and her ability to love unconditionally.
Bailey is going down as one of my all time favorite characters. His ability to make me laugh and cry has not been out done by any other character yet.
Ambrose has so much deep beauty that you can’t help but love him. His strength and sense of duty is unmatched.
I’m going to be thinking about this story for a long time. When I saw that Amy Harmon had a new book coming out I quickly recommended it to my friends. I knew Ms. Harmon wouldn’t disappoint. This story is one I will continue to encourage my friends to read. I know I will read it again. After my husband gave me a funny look for laughing like a crazy person (Bailey had just announced, “You gonna tell me I can’t have my seeing-eye cat with me?”) I decided I’m going to read this book to him like I did On the Island and Easy. I for one am a better person for reading it.
Standalone
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