Review by Jr Bacdayan, happy teen.
My dad gave me this book and made me read it. It's basically the autobiography of Dr. Ben Carson, a world renowned neurosurgeon that made headlines worldwide for his part in the first successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head.
The first half of the book is about his life. From his childhood through med-school, through his marriage and his children. His story is very interesting. He comes from a broken family, his mother raised him and his brother by herself in down-town Detroit. The mother works as a maid and the family barely gets by. The young Ben struggles at school and gets low grades, then his mother forces them to drop watching TV and playing outside. She forces them to borrow and read books from the library. At first he hates this but then learns to love books. Eventually, his grades go up until he eventually graduates with high honors and gets into Yale, then later on Johns Hopkins.
Through it all he encounters difficulties like his rage, fights, peer-pressure, among other things. But he gets through them all. The other half of the book is basically about the preparation and operation of the Siamese twins and some of his other patients. Gifted Hands is the riveting story of one man’s secret for success, tested against daunting odds and driven by an incredible mindset that dares to take risks. This inspiring autobiography takes you into the operating room to witness surgeries that made headlines around the world — and into the private mind of a compassionate, God-fearing physician who lives to help others.

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