Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Rating: 5 Stars

Title: Making Faces
 
Author:  Amy Harmon
 
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
 
Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Length: 320 Pages   

Summary :  

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.

Review: 

I just finished this book and I LOVED IT! If I'm being honest, I had read a couple of the reviews, which I don't normally do, and they were complaining about the religious aspect of the book being shoved down their throats. I'm not really a religious person so I was a little worried about whether or not I would like it. I didn't feel like this book was like that at all. I mean, sure, there was a few mentions here and there but Fern's father is a pastor, so it wasn't like it was out of left field or anything. That said, it wasn't done in an in your face type of way at all. I wouldn't qualify this as a Christian book or a spiritual/religious book.

This isn't the typical romance that I'm used to reading these days, where boy meets girl, they fall madly in love and then fight the rest of the book to stay together. Or even fight to stay away from each other. This one follows a boy and a girl through some of their high school and post high school years as they learn what life is about and some valuable lessons along the way. This book is about more than the love story. It's about a small town and the people that live there. It's about friends and stereotypes and relationships. It's about self-image, expectations and overcoming. It's about life and how it isn't always perfect, it is in fact, sometimes downright awful, but you persevere and you do what you have to do to live the life you want. It's about the journey.

I think that overall, Ambrose grew more as a character. Fern and Bailey were both fairly well-adjusted characters that knew who they were. I think Fern had some growing to do yet, even at the end. I do think she had started her journey towards the end but I got the feeling that she would get there. There is an explanation for this in the book though, that makes total sense. 
I love the poem that Fern writes. It is so fitting for her, for Ambrose and for Bailey. Oh and I adored Bailey. His attitude and outlook about life despite his limitations is so inspiring and, frankly, typical of a lot of people that I've known that had life altering limitations.

Tissue warning!! Have a box handy. That's all I'm gonna say.

This is a book that will stay with me and will absolutely be a keeper for me. It's one I will come back to and re-read. And I get to see Ms. Harmon at the Cleveland book signing next weekend....can't wait to get this one signed!

Purchase Making Faces on Amazon. (Just click the link.)