This was such a compelling, emotional read! I absolutely loved the storytelling which was quite different from the author’s other books. This book made me feel so much! It was equally heartbreaking and heartwarming and deeply moving from the start. It was refreshing, unique and it made me smile and grin and cry. Can you draw me a happy face? You can copy the eyes and the mouths if you want to. Do you feel happy? What sort of things make you feel happy? Can you make a happy face? What does our mouth and eyes do when we are happy? What noise might we make? (laughter or giggling) What was REALLY great about this book is the expansive amount of celebrity photos that Kevyn used, everyone from Vanessa Williams, to Drew Barrymore, to Demi Moore. If I had not seen the step by step directions for some of the looks, I would have NEVER guessed who it was! He REALLY surprised the reader about what can be accomplished with the correct and playful application of makeup.

Everything about this story is somehow connected. As a result of it taking place over so many years, we got to see how little seemingly insignificant details came into play later on in a powerful, life-changing way. Fern and Amrbose were beautiful. They woke up my cold-cynical heart and I was so invested. I just wanted them to be happy. Their healing was gradual and precious and I literally don’t know why I loved it so much, but I did. (Even if there were a few points where I thought it might be a bit much, I still loved them.) The idea of making faces had to do with thinking about the body as something you can manipulate. I had done some performance pieces - rigorous works dealing with standing, leaning, bending - and as they were performed, some of them seemed to carry a large emotional impact. I was very interested in that: if you perform a bunch of arbitrary operations, some people will make very strong connections with them, and others won't. That's really all the faces were about - just making a bunch of arbitrary faces.He had) a face like the statue of some Victorian industrialist, heavy and firm and deeply lined, giving an impression of stern willingness —John Braine It brought up so many questions and things to ponder... Why was someone born a certain way? Why did someone survive? Was there a grand design? Or was it all just random chance handed out by the universe? They were adults when they finally got together, but their love felt so juvenile and teenage-like. Yes, there were couple of cute moments, like the kiss in the park, but it wasn't enough to connect me to them. And I don't mean that I wanted explicit sex scenes. I wanted for their love to grow and develop, to turn into something profound and bigger than life. Their constant quoting of Hamlet and Shakespeare wasn't doing it for me. Beauty has become more international and ironically more homogenous because more and more people are trying to look like a Snapchat filter. Plastic surgery is more accessible than ever too. Seeing a book by Kevin Aucoin written in the early 2000s reinforces the fact more than ever: lines are blurring and boundaries in beauty are disappearing. We have always been chasing perfect, beautiful faces since the dawn of time.

In a town when everyone knows each other and things don’t remain hidden for very long, Fern is love with Ambrose since she was a little kid and he helped her with a spider’s funeral. But Fern never thought that she could be pretty enough for him and so she kept her feelings secret. Use the face (laminated) for drawing emotion faces. Put it alongside a mirror so children can make faces themselves. This book was so moving and inspirational. I was such a weepy fool. My heart was filled to the brim. As this book spanned years we were able to see how events of yesterday plays into the intricate future. Even with these two character being as amazing as they are there is no doubt who stole the show... Bailey. His and Fern's friendship is probably, if not, my favorite friendship I've ever read. There aren't even words to describe how amazing it is. Everything that comes out of his mouth is written with such a force. He is unlike any character I've ever had the pleasure of reading. He alone would be a reason I would recommend this book. The characters in Making Faces are flawless. 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.”

This book had been on my radar for a long time. Let me say that I have never read an Amy Harmon book that I didn't love. So why did I put off reading this one for so long? Well, I honestly just wasn't ready to suffer another heartache at the hands of this incredibly talented author. Her books are always beautiful, but highly emotional. I have to be in the right frame of mind to dive into one of her books, with my tissues handy and ready to shed a few tears. Ambrose Young is a handsome, popular and a talented athlete. He's the kind of guy you see on the covers of romantic novels (according to Fern). Sure, he's beautiful on the outside - but also on the inside, only he doesn't show it... 💥 One day his) face would collapse, like that of a beautiful woman who suddenly abandons the pretense and concedes defeat —Harvey Swados