[Book Review] I've Seen The End of You
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I had the privilege of reviewing I've Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know as an Advanced Review Copy through @netgalley.
I've Seen the End of You is a memoir-esque book by Dr. W. Lee Warren @drleewarren. Warren is an accomplished neurosurgeon who also spent time in Iraq as a combat surgeon. Through the stories of patients like Samuel and Joey, Warren tells the story of his struggle with faith as he fights to help patients battle one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. His own personal struggle with grief is laid against the fabric of what his patients and their families experience.
Since Warren's characters are likely comprised both stories of individuals and composites of a variety of patients, I was impressed by his character development. I'm sure that some of the stories are truly just snippets of actual lives and some is a composite of the lives of a few people from similar instances. Warren developed stories of a rich set of individuals who helped you see this disease from a variety of different angles. He does a great job of describing the individuals in his world in a way that makes it possible to picture and visualize them.
The book is not a light read in a few ways - and please know that I characterize books all along my love to hate spectrum as heavy reads and I'd say I'm much more in the like this book camp. First, because the individuals do develop a depth and reality to them and you know that they represent the lives of real people there is celebration and heartbreak throughout the book. Second, the book does not have a clear throughline. This is probably my strongest critique of the writing. The book does have a throughline but it is a bit rambling and lacks a tightness to the writing that I prefer.
This book is a good book for people in grief who are sick of hearing the pat answers and responses that many Christians give in grief. I also truly appreciate how this book characterizes grief as something we, as a society, do not give people time for. I grew a great deal in my own thought process about grief and grieving as a result of reading this book.