Making Faces by Amy Harmon

It’s now been 3 years since I’ve read this book and it still remains number one in all the many, many books I’ve read.

If I had to sum it up I would say inspirational and so, so beautiful!

I love all the characters but my real hero is Bailey. Just read this book and you’ll understand.

This one is a must read!

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Five diamond stars!

WARNING: this book is so beautifully written and the stories so inspiring you’ll want to read it and re-read it again and again!

Amy Harmon has just a magic touch with words. With a few well thaught sentences she delivers pearls of wisdom and sensitivity. I filled nearly two pages with her quotes and sentences so beautiful I wanted to keep them and meditate them each day.

The plot: Fern and Bailey are cousins and best friends. As a child Fern is, well, not pretty but she has a golden heart. Bailey is disabled. He suffers from Dushenne muscular dystrophy and his muscles weaken every day. He knows from a tender age he’ll die early.
Fern has always loved Ambrose, often compared to Hercules. Outwardly Ambrose is Bailey’s opposite. He is tall, strong and beautiful, worshipped by the whole town. Fern knows she can’t be loved by such a beautiful boy but she is never bitter. She will even help her friend Rita to seduce Ambrose, writing love letters in her stead, undressing each other’s soul and heart in the process.
9/11 has been a turning point for Ambrose. He’ll leave to fight in Iraq with his four best friends: Grant, Paulie, Jesse and Beans. All on the wrestling team, forming a tight brotherhood. All for one and one for all. They’ll all die in Iraq, except Ambrose who has been gravely hurt and disfigured. Ambrose comes back to Hannah Lake crushed by the loss of his friends. He is plagued by guilt and feels responsible for their deaths. He has lost faith and does not understand why his life has been spared. He’ll hide in his father’s bakkery, living at night and refusing to acknowledge anyone. Will Fern, still in love with him, help him to overcome his grief? I won’t tell much about the story and let you discover it.

Though, this is not a love story. This is THE STORY of LOVE, its multiple faces and its miracles.

It can be the love of a friend to rely on, the unwavering love of a brotherhood or the powerful love of parents for their special child. It can also be the intense love of a lover.
That’s love who makes us really see. See with our heart and not with our eyes. See the true beauty in the outward ugliness.
Bailey may be disabled but he was a special person because of his love and courage, quote:”because life has sculpted him in something amazing”. As Ambrose said “Bailey thaught those he loved to love, put things in perspective, to live for the present, to say I love you often and mean it”. And this is a big lesson, so true but often forgotten except when ordeals knock at our door.

The characters in “Making Faces” are extraordinary. So much I wish I could be friend with them in the real life. Fern is selfless, caring, enthousiast for simple things and has no pretense. She is deeply loyal in friendship as in love. As Ambrose said, she writes “smutty romance novels and quote scripture”. Ambrose is intense, courageous, beautiful inside out. He is introspctive, strong and loyal. And Bailey … he is my Super Hero! He is so alive, self mocking, determined to fight and beat the odds. Never self centered, never complaining despite his sickness. He is a force to be reckoned with.

I’ll have to stop here or else I’ll write “a book about the book”. But there is so much to tell!

A few words for Amy thaugh. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Thank you for your beautiful, sensitive and graceful writing.  And please, never cease to write and regale us with your stories.

You can buy it on Amazon