Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Ambrose Young was beautiful. 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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When I finished reading Making Faces by Amy Harmon, I wanted to re-read it straight away, though I couldn't because I was an absolute wreck, my eyes were puffy and my heart ached. A few of the characters struggle with their outward appearance, but no matter how ugly some people may find them on the outside, Fern, Ambrose and Bailey will always be three of the most enchanting people ever to have lived with in ink. Their hearts and personalities so kind and loving, going above and beyond to make their loved ones and each other feel cared for, protected and beautiful, showing it's not what's on the outside but what's on the inside that counts. 

Making Faces is such an amazing story and has such magnificent descriptions that the words carried me into another world where I felt as though I had known the characters for years, so when they went through some truly painful experiences, I felt as though someone had a knife through my chest and I became a weeping mess. However, though there was a lot of gut wrenching, heart shattering pain I was still able to smile whilst reading this book because there was also so much strength, optimism and warmth within the pages. Making Faces is now one of my all time favourite reads and I recommend that all of you, if you haven't already, add it to your TBR lists.