[{"_1":2,"_42":-5,"_43":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_10":11,"_40":-5,"_41":-5},"root",{"_5":-5,"_6":-5,"_7":-5,"_8":9},"user","shoppingCartId","toast","locale","en","routes/_store+/_readers+/email_author.$slug/route",{"_12":13,"_39":-5},"book",{"_14":15,"_16":17,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":25},"id","Z2lkOi8vbGVhbnB1Yi9TdG9yZTo6Qm9va1Byb2R1Y3QvMTE2NjE","title","The Hands of God","state","published","contactAuthorMethod","email","aboutText","

HOW WOULD YOU LIVE IF YOU LOST YOUR HANDS?

Could you feed yourself? Clean yourself? What about opening a door? How would you dress yourself, or tie your shoes? Would everyone you ever loved consider you a freak? A monster?

Pamela Ruka knows the answers to these questions, and more. When she was six years old, she lost her hands in the accident that claimed her mother’s life.

She is taken in by a grandfather who holds her hostage for eight years, hoping for insurance money to pay his mounting gambling debts. He hides her from the world, making her eat off the floor like a dog.

In those years when other kids are in school learning to play games, Pamela stays home alone and compensates for her lost hands by studying patterns, learning to anticipate and avoid what she cannot control. When she is fourteen, she escapes and grows into an independent young woman who transforms her handicap into a world-shaking ability.

She is offered a pair of high-tech prosthetic hands that will earn her longed-for freedom. These same hands, however, would destroy her special ability to save the lives of others. She realizes that freedom is much more than the ability to tie her own shoes. It’s the ability to choose your fate, no matter how difficult the choices.

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