Review: Making Faces by Amy Harmon

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.

Wow. Just. Wow. Two days later and I still am having issues finding anything else to say. You know that feeling... You're sad but at the same time you can't help but feel good about your heartbreak? That's Making Faces.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Weaknesses can be strengths and vice versa. Beauty is what you've come to know and not necessarily what's at eye level. 

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 that would otherwise never exist.

It's not only the lessons that makes this story, but the characters that are enveloped in those lessons. Bailey Sheen, for example (and my favorite). The kid was handed a shit hand in life, but he is probably the most inspirational character I've had the pleasure of meeting. He suffers from muscular dystrophy, so instead of legs, he has a sense of humor; instead of arms, he has snark; instead of that athletic skill he's always craved, he has brains and a big heart. I absolutely fell in love with Bailey - he saves so many, whether it be their lives or their drive and motivation. If anyone is a hero in this story, it's him. 

"I have no pride left, Ambrose!" Bailey said. "No pride. But it was my pride or my life. I had to choose. So do you. You can have your pride and sit here and make cupcakes and get old and fat and nobody will give a damn after a while. Or you can trade that pride in for a little humility and take your life back."

I could really keep gushing about the heroism that is Bailey Sheen, but I should also mention Ambrose and Fern. Ambrose is lost and is having trouble holding on to who he thought he was. He lost his friends, his good looks, and, truly, his respect for himself. Fern knows exactly who she is but has trouble believing it is at all beautiful and deserving. I wouldn't say she's insecure, just resigned, and it is this acceptance of who she is that makes her unique. 

The romance between these two takes its time, spreading itself out over the course of years, slowly building a history and a solidity that can't be broken. It's real and amazing, and although it may have seemed odd at one time for them to come together, two people could not be more perfect for each other. It is through each other that they find their way, each of them proving the other wrong.

This books takes tragedy and allows us to see the light that rises from the darkness. One of my favorite quotes sums it up nicely:

"Maybe everyone represents a piece of the puzzle. We all fit together to create this experience we call life. None of us can see the part we play or the way it all turns out. Maybe the miracles that we see are just the tip of the iceberg. And maybe we just don't recognize the blessings that come as a result of terrible things."

Everyone is connected in one way or another, and everything we do has an effect, whether we realize it or not. 

I really could go on and on and ramble until you have no idea what I'm talking about. Just read the book. Seriously. 

Amy Harmon is a beast when it comes to writing. The emotions I experienced while reading Making Faces is something I will remember for years to come, and I have no choice but to believe this will be one of my favorite books, not only of this year, but ever. 

Highly recommend!



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5/5 Stars

Cheers!

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

She didn't understand, quite, but something was starting to take shape, out of magic and will. 

Smoke and bone.

I don't even know if I can begin to do this book justice. It turned me upside down, inside out, leaving me slack-jawed, dumbfounded, and a messy pile of conflicting emotions. 

Karou is an art student in Prague. She has a sharp-witted best friend and an egotistical ex-boyfriend and she runs errands for whom some would describe as the devil. She lives her life half in and out of normal, and as much as she tries, she can't find any middle ground. 

Karou was mysterious. She had no apparent family, she never talked about herself, and she was expert at evading questions -- for all that her friends knew of her background, she might have sprung whole from the head of Zeus.

For all she knows, that might be the truth. Karou is missing a vital piece, that element that would make her whole, but when you don't know what you're looking for, how do you find yourself?

It's not until she meets Akiva that she begins to glimpse who she might have been. Akiva is this gloriously beautiful angel with bright, tiger-like eyes and all the cold and bubbling turmoil to smolder behind them. He's intrigued by Karou; she stirs something that he's buried deep within himself, and she makes him remember. Not only that, but he seems to fill the emptiness Karou has felt her entire life.

As far back as she could remember, a phantom life had mocked her with its impenetrable "something else," but now it was the opposite. Here, in the circle of Akiva's presence, even as they spoke of war and siege and enduring enmity, she felt herself being drawn into the warm absoluteness and rightness of him, like he was both place and person and, contrary to all reason, exactly where she was supposed to be.

But as they become closer, Akiva makes an earth-shattering discovery that would alter Karou's world as she's known it, and could very well destroy his.

Laini Taylor has this writing style that, teamed up with her incredible imagination, creates an elegant and dark fairy tale where the monsters and the beautiful angels are not exactly what we'd believe them to be. Neither are evil, neither are good; they are of the same minds, opposing forces in a centuries long war.

This conjured world in The Daughter of Smoke and Bone is anything but one dimensional. Taylor has the challenge of not only making our world believable, but describing a setting unlike any other where the sun chases the moons and creatures like lizard-moths or jackal-cats exist. It's gorgeously written, and I'm really having a hard time putting how I feel about this book into words that will do it justice. My copy is filled with pages in which the corners are folded, marking a quote or an idea that struck me. This book is overflowing with them.

Karou's and Akiva's relationship ... *takes a huge breath* ... How can love really get any more beautiful and heartbreaking than that? The pieces are slowly brought together, hint by hint, moment by moment, and when you realize the truth, you can't tell if you're surprised or if Laini Taylor had you in on the secret all along; you just couldn't recognize it in the bits and pieces she presents it in until she makes it whole.

This story isn't really about monsters and angels. It goes so much deeper than that. Forbidden love... Treason... War... Bigotry... Peace... Magic...  the idea that two people can make the world a better place.

War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them... We can invent them. This is the beginning, here.

And most of all, this story is about hope. 

Hope makes its own magic.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is absolutely my favorite read this year. It took my breath away, and I'm really having a hard time picking up anything else. Its wrapped me in a haze, and I haven't been able to shake myself out of it, though I'm not sure I want to.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

::other posts about The Daughter of Smoke and Bone::

*Teasers*

*More Teasers*

*The Power of Pain: Thoughts inspired by The Daughter of Smoke and Bone*

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Happy Reading Everyone :)