Making Faces by Amy Harmon {Review}

My good friend over at KJ's Book Nook is hosting a 

Once Upon a Time...Beauty and the Beast Month. 

Check it out here. 

Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Kindle Edition, 405 pages

Published October 20th 2013



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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My Review: 5 Stars

I bought this book awhile ago and it was recommended to me by a good book friend for a book challenge for 2016. I was immediately sucked in, blown away by this story, and I think my life has been forever changed. It's not my usual type of book, but I'm so glad that I read it--I just couldn't put it down! I love a Beauty and the Beast type of story and this one is fantastic.

Fern isn't your typical romance heroine. She's the only child of an older pastor and his wife, isn't pretty, and gets lost in the flow of high school life. Ambrose is a paragon. He's tall, gorgeous, nice, and the best upcoming wrestler Hannah Lake has ever seen. Bailey is Fern's cousin and has been facing death, due to disease, for years. His outlook on life, his attitude, and his daily encounters with those around him dug deep into my heart. These characters are real, raw, and inspiring. I can't stop thinking about this story, the life lessons that came from these pages, and these genuine characters.

9/11 is a moment in history that won't ever be forgotten and to read about a story that takes place during that time and the things that happen to these individuals because of those events are heart rending, tender, and captivating. 

The writing style is so engaging and amazing. The words flow in such a way that pierce the soul. There are so many great thoughts and the events that occur within these pages stimulate the whole spectrum of emotions. I just don't have the words to express how much this book touched me. This is my first Amy Harmon book and I guarantee--it won't be my last.

Content: There is more content than I prefer, but for me, the story is so worth being told, that these issues can be overlooked for the most part. If you're a squeaky clean reader, this one probably won't be for you.

Moderate language (teenage boys, soldiers)--no F*bombs, but a lot of other words; mild-moderate violence (physical abuse, death, war-type violence but not overly graphic); mild-moderate romance elements (kissing, some brief touching, a few crass jokes, innuendo, unwed pregnancies with no details).

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Buy Links:

 

About the Author:

Amy Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in twelve countries, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.

Amy Harmon has written ten novels - the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, The Song of David, Infinity + One, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Bird and the Sword, will be released in the spring of 2016. She will release From Sand and Ash in October of 2016, via Lake Union Publishing. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com.