BlueInk Review
“Brown’s straightforward, unpretentious writing style is compelling and brutally honest. The use of present tense, first person, amplifies the effect. His wry sense of humor is both endearing and heartbreaking. . . . Regardless of one’s personal experience with cancer or critical illness, these pages relate an essential human experience: the struggle to survive against the odds. This universal theme will resonate with almost any reader.”
The BookLife Prize 2019
“While memoirs of surviving disease are plenty, Hundred Percent Chance stands apart through its genuine humor and unflinching portrayal of both the physical and psychological struggles that accompany a diagnosis of disease. . . . This memoir’s focus on the tiny moments that ultimately shape and define a life, are particularly poignant and engrossing.”
Michael Copley, National Chairman, Beat AML, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
“Robert takes the reader inside the world of AML – an unexpected journey of diagnosis, treatment, and survival of a subset of AML that he was not supposed to survive. But, he did. . . . Within these pages you’ll discover and come to understand Robert’s mindset. Simply, but painfully it was: I will survive. No questioning, no heroics – just, I’m going to live. Hundred Percent Chance: A Memoir is an opportunity to live and feel the fear, the discouragement, the pain, the exhaustion, the struggle, the determination, the elation of surviving a monster.”
Foreword Clarion Reviews
“Robert K. Brown’s medical memoir Hundred Percent Chance is larger than life without trying to be, relating the year Brown had cancer. . . . While the content of the book is raw, brutal, and honest, it is Brown’s lively, rebellious attitude—and understanding that he was lucky to go into remission so quickly and to receive such excellent care—that makes this book a triumph. Every awful moment is balanced by arresting, rambunctious prose, and the book’s personality is magnetic. Descriptions of painful experiences are poignant, and both Brown’s internal and external worlds are illustrated with earnestness. . . . Hundred Percent Chance is an inspiring, provocative memoir about dealing with cancer that maintains its sense of humor when the going gets rough.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Brown’s writing is lively and lyrical, with moments of intense description offset by humorous ones. . . For those interested in seeing the toll leukemia can take on a young, healthy person, Brown’s account offers the details in searing prose. An intense, deftly composed cancer narrative.”
Paul Miller, author of Vantage Point
“Brown has a gift for weaving life arcs in and out of his writing. He captures the urgency of an unforeseen emergency as nimbly as the grinding march of a long, degrading chemo run. Important characters in his battle are allowed to shine and then recede as people often do in our lives. His story is presented in a dynamic flow of scene and feeling rather than an abrupt hopscotch from one square to the next. Hundred Percent Chance is both honest and present in its struggle, its naiveté and its determination.”
Publishers Weekly
“Brown examines the rigors of cancer treatment in his candid debut memoir. . . This intimate, passionate chronicle of recovery will appeal to those who’ve battled cancer.”