Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Making Faces is an emotional book that pulls you in and makes you feel.  I'm not talking the occasional tear or chuckle.  I mean really Feel.  It's raw, and gut wrenching, tears of happiness, and jubilant smiles.  I think I felt every emotion possible while reading this book.  By the time I finished I was happily emotionally exhausted.

Fern is "the preacher's daughter".  All through school she was a bit of an ugly duckling, practically invisible to most.  She spends most of her time with her cousin, Bailey, who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy.  Ambrose is quite possibly the most popular kid in school, or at least the guy every boy wants to be and every girl is crushing on.  He's a champion wrestler and a good student.

This book covers different time periods through their lives.  Going back to the past when it helps define a moment in the present.  This is something I usually find a little confusing in books (unless I know I'm reading a time travel book).  However, in Making Faces it works wonderfully.  Although I will admit I didn't necessarily pay attention to the Month and year listed when it would flash back.  Which made one big event hit me almost harder that it did when it happened.  Fern, Bailey, and Ambrose were all seniors in high school in the Fall of 2001.  Their lives and the town is forever altered by the events that day and events it lead too.  Fern grows out of her ugly duckling stage, but doesn't realize it.  Ambrose realizes the hardest possible way, that looks and athletic prowess aren't everything in life.  Bailey continues to look at the world from a different point of view and try to be a hero in his own way.

Amy Harmon eloquently put together this story filled with tragedy, loss, life, love, and happiness.  It is a book that any on can find at least one character and say hey, they are a lot like me.  I feel this book has a lot to teach and give.  It would be great for high schoolers.  It might even give them a better perspective into how other kids in school feel.  This is a book you will not regret reading.