Tuesday 9 June 2015

Review: Making Faces by Amy Harmon

*****5 Stars*****
 
 
Wow! Just....wow!
If you're looking for a heart-wrenching read that will pull all of those pesky emotions out of you and give you a severe case of the 'feels' then this book is definitely for you!
Yep, I think I've found a new book for the top spot of tear-jerker reads. It's not just that this book has one really sad event, it has several over the course of a few years. But it also follows one characters struggles with living with muscular dystrophy, a condition I didn't really know much about and have never personally encountered before. I found this book so eye-opening to what people go through with this condition, not just the sufferers but their loved ones too. I have to talk about this character, Bailey, he is the most inspirational character I've ever read. His outlook was something to be admired and his passion for life was just beautiful. Never before has a character affected me like him, and yes, he made me ugly cry. And he's not even a main character! This is Fern and Ambrose's story but Bailey definitely stole some of their thunder in my eyes. In a way he was the third main character because he was so instrumental in Ambrose's healing and Fern's understanding.
Now for the love story. This is a story about a girl named Fern who has been in love with her class mate Ambrose Young since she was a little girl and he helped her bury a dead spider and sang over the grave. Fern, a plain girl who wore braces and was lumbered with wild red hair and a skinny, awkward frame loved Ambrose from afar for years. Ambrose being the captain of the wrestling team and drop dead gorgeous and popular was way out of her league. When Fern was in the last year of school she discovered Ambrose was not just a pretty face, he was smart, enjoyed poetry and quoted Shakespeare and Byron, and so Fern fell harder but still Ambrose barely noticed her.
At 18 Ambrose leaves for basic training and shortly after is shipped off to Iraq. When he arrives home it is under tragic circumstances. Now the tables have turned, Fern has blossomed and is no longer the skinny, awkward nerd with frizzy hair, and Ambrose is no longer the flawlessly beautiful stud of his teen years. Can they both overcome their self-confidence issues both old and new?
I can't recommend this book enough, it's a beautifully written and emotional journey that everyone needs to experience!
 
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.
 
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