Wednesday, April 16, 2014

MAKING FACES by Amy Harmon

 
 
 
BOOK DESCRIPTION
 
 
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.
 
MY REVIEW
 
5 out of 5 *Stars*
 
 
This has got to be one of the best books that I’ve ever read.  If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would.  It is a deeply moving story that takes a closer look at inner beauty, a person’s inner struggle, loss, heartache, love, and everything in between. 
 
“If God makes all of our faces, did he laugh when he made me?”
You best get your tissues ready because I have never cried so much from one book… ever!  Okay, you read this and think, “Why would I want to read a book that makes me cry?”  Because it is the type of book and message that will stay with you forever, that’s why.
“Victory is in the battle.”
The story was written beautifully and every character was described in a way that made them come to life.  It is written in the synopsis… “the story of a small town where five young men go off to war, and only one comes back.”  You know it’s coming, but it doesn’t hurt your heart any less.  I wanted to enter the book and stop what I knew was inevitably supposed to happen.  The loss was devastating.
“Joshua looked at his only daughter and his hand shook as he reached for her, wanting to touch her, wanting to console her, wanting to fall to his knees and pray for the parents who had lost their sons.”
With a girl that grew up far from perfect looking, a boy that was perfect looking then scarred from the war, and an angel in the form of a boy confined to a wheelchair, the reader gets to see lessons learned involving the message of outer beauty influenced by what a person is like on the inside. 
“True beauty, the kind that doesn’t fade or wash off, takes time.  It takes pressure.  It takes incredible endurance.  It is the slow drip that makes the stalactite, the shaking of the Earth that creates mountains, the constant pounding of the waves that breaks up the rocks and smooths the rough edges.  And from the violence, the furor, the raging of the winds, the roaring of the waters, something better emerges, something better emerges, something that would otherwise never exist.”    
This book looks inside the deployment of soldiers, but is not a military book.  It also involves true love of the deepest kind, but is not a romance.  It even involves a suspenseful underlining story that impacts everyone.  It is a definite must read.  One person even referred to it as “the book of 2013”.  To me, it is timeless, and something that I will recommend to anyone and everyone whenever I can.  Happy reading…
 
VICTORY IS IN THE BATTLE
(Those 5 simple words now have so much meaning.)

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