This gripping inspirational memoir grapples with the tension between faith and science—and between death and hope—as a seasoned neurosurgeon faces insurmountable odds and grief both in the office and at home.WINNER OF THE ECPA CHRISTIAN BOOK AWARD® • “Beautiful, haunting, powerful.”—Daniel G. Amen, MDDr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with … assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I’ve seen the end of you.
But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That’s when he reached the end of himself.
Page-turning medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong and how we can find light in the darkest hours of life.
I’ve Seen the End of You is the rare book that offers tender empathy and tangible hope for those who are suffering. No matter what you’re facing, this doesn’t have to be the end. Even when nothing seems to makes sense, God can transform your circumstances and your life. And he can offer a new beginning.
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Is this book worth your time? A few questions will help you decide: Do you appreciate fine writing? Are you willing to have your faith stirred? Would you like to eavesdrop on the thoughts of a brilliant surgeon? Could you benefit from some warm, vibrant, incisive contemplations about this difficult, untidy, wonderful thing called human life? If you answered yes to any or all of these, you are holding the right book. Enjoy it. I certainly did.
Dr. Lee Warren has a rarified vantage point, for he makes a living by entering the most secluded — and most sacred — part of a person: the human brain. The patients in this book have stories worthy of a novel, and Dr. Warren does them justice, describing their medical crises in gripping prose while also facing the questions that emerge to test his faith.
Warren, a Neurological Surgeon, brings together bits and pieces of stories regarding his patients, along with his own personal struggles.
Many of the patients in this book face a rare cancerous tumor that develops in the brain. Glioblastomas come with a hopeless prognosis. Yet, many people continue to have faith and turn to prayer.
Dr. Warren, who is also a Christian, believes strongly in prayer as well. But he faces some conflicting thoughts since he deals with death and statistics daily. He knows God can heal, but when he realizes the outcome of cancer, especially glioblastoma, he struggles with reality and faith.
I’m a person who could never work in the health care industry, yet I’ve always been fascinated by it, and love the opportunity to learn. While this book may not appeal to all, it did me. And honestly, I can’t imagine it not appealing to most.
Each patient’s story is told in quite a bit of detail, complete with lots of medical jargon. But I enjoyed the learning aspect. Yet, more important than medical information were the stories of struggles. How each patient and the doctor deals with the possibility of death. Some are spared for a time, some taken.
The patient stories were very enlightening. As well as Warren’s faith and struggles. No doubt struggles most of us have faced. But there are also thoughts given by Warren that we may not have considered.
Warren includes many interesting things that have molded him into the physician he is. One is that he follows through with not only medical care of his patients but emotional. He also involves his wife in his concerns and they pray together.
But he still deals with self-doubt and lack of understanding at times. There are prayers answered, but not in the way Warren had expected. I’m thinking of one family who experienced the death of a loved one during a very routine surgery (if there can ever be a surgery considered routine). Later the family met with him and shared some enlightening information.
This is an engaging memoir and the writing is captivating. According to Dr. Warren, he hopes the book will help people through their journey of prayer, faith, doubt, and loss.
I know it has me.
What Concerned Me
Fair warning to the squeamish (description of operations) or those who get depressed easily. The patients’ stories can be sad, of course, yet there is an uplifting quality that far outweighs the grief and sadness.
What I Liked Most
Faith and prayer can be extremely confusing. Through examples, Warren gives his thoughts regarding these issues.
Excellent lessons and thoughts to consider. It may not be for everyone but read other reviews. Then decide. I loved what it had to offer.
My thanks to #NetGalley and #Waterbrook for the ARC of #IveSeenTheEndOfYou This book review is only my opinion, of which I was free to express..
I’ve Seen the End of You, A Neurosurgeon’s Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know by author Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD is a remarkable book. This 272 page book about death, God, and dying is extremely well written. I found myself totally spellbound by the honesty and transparency of it.
In his book, author Warren made me ponder, cry, and become inspired. He beautifully shares stories of patients and faith in a style that is engrossing. It is a hard book to put down and sometimes equally hard to read. There are so many emotions it brings out. Many times I read with tears in my eyes.
This book is the memoir or true stories from a Neurosurgeon who believes in science and believes in God. Even though he believes in God he also had doubts. He will take you through true tales of his patients that will give you glimpses of both life and death. You will be moved. I have thought about this book so many times after reading it. It is one you will want to share with everyone but not give your copy away.
I highly recommend this book for anyone except teens and under. The subject matter may haunt them. It is riveting and should certainly win awards this year. It receives a 5 out of 5 stars from me. A copy was provided by the publisher but these are my honest words.
I’ve Seen the End of You is a heart-wrenching and powerful account of a neurosurgeon’s journey to find a balance between faith and doubt. It is a story about the faith he has known and the doubts that emerged through war, disease, and the sorrow of a personal loss. It is a well-written memoir-type book that is easy to read in the sense of understanding the text. Yet, it was often emotional and thought-provoking. I had to pause numerous times to ponder what my responses would be to the people and situations written about in the book–what my response to God would be if I found myself in similar difficulties. The author, a professed fellow-sufferer of grief and loss, shares with readers his heartfelt struggle to reconcile a loving God with destructive injuries of war, non-survivable cancer, and dying children. That reconciliation is a difficult, almost insurmountable, task and yet Dr. Warren has done a masterful job of helping the reader understand the importance of having faith. And that faith is not one that keeps us from the inevitable problems of the world, but one that shifts our focus from the problem to the promise of the One who cannot lie–the One who is there, at work even in our darkest hours.
Despite the author’s honest doubts and questions, I found the book to be faith-filled and inspiring as he shares his ultimate recognition that faith ‘is being able to look for hope even when it seems impossible to find.’ He brings encouragement to those who need to know that hope can bring us to a place of shelter where the devastating things in life cannot destroy us.
I received a complimentary uncorrected copy of the book from Waterbrook Publishers and was not required to write a review. The opinions are my own.
Few books have touched me in the way that Dr. W. Lee Warren’s powerful memoir, I’ve Seen the End of You has. His accounts of his journey as a neurosurgeon, treating various forms of cancer, head injuries and other health problems illustrated just how tenuous life is and how important it is to appreciate each day.
I received Dr. Warren’s book from Waterbrook & Multnomah as part of the launch team for an honest review.
Warren shares many of his patients’ stories throughout his book. Each one touches the heart in a special way. Some face their diagnosis with anger and denial. Others with dignity as they teach a lesson in how to die well with faith and grace. Warren explores his own journey as a physician and a man of God. Through most of his memoir, he stands as an outsider, looking in as he treats his patients. Deciding with each one how he will approach the relationship as a doctor. Some he remains aloof, with a just the facts demeanor, yet others he is caring and personal. He lets his years of practice and intuition guide him. One commonality is his habit of praying before each surgery, asking for God’s guidance and care to truly see what the patient needs and not allow himself to feel he knows. A lesson he was taught as a resident intern and one he never forgot.
I think the part of the book that moved me most was when personal tragedy hit his family. When he became part of a club no parent ever wants to be included in, a child’s death. This struck me because as a doctor Warren was always the one delivering bad news, sad prognosis and complicated reports. He was always the one with the information, not the one on the receiving end. It reminded me that each of us is the one outside a trauma until something happens to us or our family. We live in a fantasy of this won’t happen to us, until our world comes crashing down and it does. Warren shows us that no one is outside of tragedy and helps the reader feel his pain as well as his healing. I strongly recommend Warren’s book, I’ve Seen the End of You. His story is timeless and placeless and one every reader can relate to through their own life experiences.
#W.LeeWarren,MD
#I’veSeentheEndofYou
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In beautiful, haunting, powerful prose, I’ve Seen the End of You will inspire you, make you cry, and ultimately help you see God and suffering in a new way.
You want to talk about a hard read! Wow!! I struggled for MONTHS to finish this book, especially since I have had a family member, and a close personal friend, both dealing with different forms of cancer during this time.
There were moments when I could only get through a few pages before having to sit down, push it aside, sigh a deep sigh with tears stinging my eyes, so many thoughts racing through my mind, not even beginning to imagine what people in the medical field have to endure. It is absolutely unimaginable to me and, after reading this book, my prayers go out to each and every one of them more fervently.
I’ve Seen the End of You is incredibly deep and personal, with a very dark subject matter, but it is handled with the upmost care and attention, in true physician fashion. Though it is a subject matter I typically shy away from, I do believe it is a book that everyone should read, a message that every ear needs to hear, and is so pertinent in this current pandemic/cancer-ridden world we live in.
Well written with precision, and clearly from the heart, I know it will tug on your heartstrings, and stick in your mind and heart like it did mine. I know I did not read this book at this time on accident, just like I know you reading this review is no accident either. If you feel the pull to read it, please read it. Though it’s a toughie, you won’t regret you did.
*I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from WaterBrook Publishing through NetGalley. All views and opinions are completely honest, and my own.
Captivating. Heart-wrenching. Honest. Absolutely worth reading.
Because of my friendship with a NICU nurse and my husband’s health issues, the big issues presented within the book were nothing new to me. The balance between science and faith, the reality of the mortality of some diseases, the eternal hope in a healing God. And when the questions of fiath and doubt storm into your front door and demand a personal audience . . .
I am not much of a crier, yet this book brought me to tears multiple times. His writing is conversational even when he enters the medical realm of diagnoses, keeping things at a level that a non-medical person can easily follow. The stories of his patients felt so real that I wanted to reach out and hug them or send a note of encouragement to them. The questions he struggled to nail down are universal, and he communicated them in a transparent way, inviting us to wrestle over the answers with him.
This is a book worth your time–not just to read, but to think about and deeply consider for yourself.
Dr. W. Lee Warren shares his thoughts and bares his emotions in his new book I’ve Seen the End of You. This is an account of the many patients that he has treated, the times when he was successful, and the moments when he realized that there was no hope. He admits that he has sometimes misjudged when he thought it was hopeless and he confesses that he has doubted just why God allowed some of these things to occur. Yes, he is neurosurgeon and a Christian, but he is also human. How many of us can truthfully say that we’ve never doubted?
Dr. Warren is very open and very honest and he writes in a pleasant and easily understood manner. As I read his thoughts, I often wondered how he could have endured some of his cases but I think it is because he is a Christian and doing what God called him to do. He admits to praying before surgery and I know from personal experience just how reassuring it is to be a patient facing the unknown and hearing their doctor asking God to grant them guidance and success. It is, however, with the death of his own child that he could fully understand their pain and suffering; it is because of this tragedy that he can now both sympathize and empathize with his patients.
I’ve Seen the End of You is an amazing book that everyone needs to read and as I neared the end, these statements from Dr. W. Lee Warren resonated with me.
Faith does not magically change our circumstances and make everything happy. It merely bends the light to show us what’s really there. It’s the prism we need to see hope when all seems lost, to survive the furnace of suffering, to grow despite the pain.
Faith doesn’t keep us from having problems. It just gives a clearer view of how God is responding to them.
I received an Advanced Reader Copy from Waterbrook and was in no way obligated to write a positive review. These are my honest thoughts.
This was an excellent book If rated from 1-10 I’d give it a 15
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. I learned a lot about glioblastoma multiforme. The ability to see the end stages of life from a neurosurgeon’s perspective was heartbreaking. Many have said they just do their jobs and move to the next patient. This doctor does not.
He has seen the end of people’s life in the hospital as well as in military hospitals in Iraq. He has walked through the dark journey of losing a child and in the book shows how his experience has equipped him to understand family members walking that same path of losing a loved one.
The stories of how differently patient’s with glioblastoma look at their end time was inspiring. As a neurosurgeon, he knows how the patient’s life will play out, it was interesting how each of us choose to live those last days. Some are hateful and bitter, some make the best of every moment.
What impacted me the most about this book was how he wrote about the choice we all have to make regarding faith. We each get to pick if we believe what we do not see to be true or wait until we see it.
I recommend this book to anyone who feels they are at the end, there is no hope for anything better. Read this book, then think about that again.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher with no expectation in review. The above comments are my own and were my choice to share. @WaterBrookMultnomah #Partner
** spoiler alert ** W. Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon, and a very good one. A man who has saved thousands of lives and one, who due to the nature of the work he does, routinely battles one of the most deadly brain cancers known to man, Glioblastoma Multiforme. 100 % fatal. GBM kills, all the time.
He is also a Christian who believes in the supreme power of God and of His faithfulness to His children. Dr. Warren arises early each day to pray and study scriptures, prays often with his wife and children, and always prays for and sometimes with his patients and their families.
In this memoir, open, raw, gritty, heartwarming and heartbreaking, we are privy to Dr. Warren’s struggles with trying to reconcile what he believes through his faith and what he knows as a scientist. God is good all the time vs GBM kills all the time. We see his pain, his doubts, his longing to believe unquestionably, unwaveringly. His desire to give his patients hope when, scientifically, he knows there is none. What a tough, tough job!
In the course of the book, the reader comes to know several of Warren’s GBM patients, and hears and sees the interactions Dr. Warren has with his patients and their families. We learn that patients who believe in a power greater than themselves tend to do better medically during the course of their disease than those who don’t, even though the outcome might be the same. We see how different people and families deal with this horrible diagnosis and the disease; one which can give hope through brief respites at times, and then come back, bigger, bolder, deadlier than ever. We see how God can use this circumstance to change people, and how seeming coincidences uncovered the GBM, so that surgery could buy a patient and family a bit more time together.
I admire Dr. Warren, as a good and decent man, and as a neurologist. His job is not an easy one. He could easily wall himself off to protect himself from the pain that dealing with GBM on a routine basis must cause, but he doesn’t. He is there for his patients with his skills, and with his human warmth. At times when things must be said and understood and plans made, at times when there are no words.
My older brother died of a GBM. I only wish, we had had someone like Dr. Warren with us during his fight against, and ultimate loss to this disease. It would have been such a comfort!
I highly recommend this book for several reasons – first, so people understand that God accepts doubt and pain; that God doesn’t lie; that He is with us always in whatever the circumstance, comforting us, perhaps even helping us to grow. Second, because it shows the true impact on the doctors of dealing with not only with using their skills and knowledge against the diseases they fight, but with trying to provide to us all the other things we look to them for – hope, understanding, comfort, help.
Many thanks to Dr. Warren for writing this book, and to NetGalley and Waterbrook for allowing me to read an ARC of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Opinions expressed here are my own.