People get cancer all the time, but not everyone writes a book about it. And not everyone who writes a book can tell a great story, like Lance can. Sure he comes across as arrogant and cocky at times, but he's proved several times over that he's one of the best cyclists in the world, so there's no point in being humble about your hard work, or the near-death experience that brought you there. But he also is very quick to recognize that he wouldn't be where he is--a Tour winner or a cancer survivor--without the help of dozens of people.

As the book mentions, defeating cancer is mostly luck. There are so many factors: what kind of cancer it is, where it is, your body type, how your body responds to the treatments... The best people may fight and pray and still die; miserable people may survive and continue their miserable lives.

The best part of this book, in my opinion, is Lance's story of overcoming cancer. It's hard to read it and not imagine how I would handle being faced with such a grim prognosis. His descriptions of the pain, the surgeries, and the triumphs make the whole experience very real. He doesn't sugar-coat anything, which is appreciated.

There are still things that happen in this book that you know wouldn't happen to the average person. For instance, due to some rotton timing, Lance finds himself without insurance right before he is supposed to have brain surgery and start chemo. The CEO of Oakley says he'll help, and he calls the insurance company and tells them to cover Lance. When the company balks, the CEO says that either they give Lance insurance, or Oakley is taking all of their business elsewhere. Lance gets covered. Unfortunately, this sort of luck doesn't happen to average people, and many are left with bills in the hundreds of thousands, which they can't pay. Still, there is some slight satisfaction in reading about someone putting the almighty insurance company in its place.

The only thing that is tired in this book is all the talk about his "amazing wife" and all the things she did for him; it's in this way that his storytelling is a detriment--he makes her sound so wonderful, so knowing that in the meantime he's divorced her and gone back to his player lifestyle just makes him come across as a jerk in that regard.

That aside, this is still a great and motivational book, on many levels. I would recommend it to anyone.