A Piece of Cake

A Memoir

De: Cupcake Brown

Narrado por: Cupcake Brown

Eleven-year-old Cupcake Brown woke up on the bicentennial and found her mother still in bed. She struggled to wake her up, pushing and pulling until she managed to tug her mother's lifeless corpse onto her own small body, crushing her beneath its dead weight. After squeezing out from under her mother, Cupcake calmly walked over to the phone and called her aunt Lori. "Lori, my momma's dead."

Here is the threshold of a hell for young Cupcake. Rather than being allowed to live with the man she believed to be her father--who turns out to have been her stepfather--she is forced into a foster home where the kids were terrorized, the refrigerator padlocked, and Cupcake sexually abused. She eventually fled the house, only to find herself wandering from misadventure to misadventure in the "system," while also developing a massive appetite for drugs and alcohol, an appetite she paid for by turning tricks. She settled down in Los Angeles and found a home in the Crips, where she was taken in and befriended by gangsters like the legendary "Monster" Kody Scott. For the first time she found a family, but when Cupcake was blasted in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun, she was once more taken in by the system.

At 16, her stepfather reeneters her life and engineers an "emancipation," in which the courts declare her an adult and free her, finally, from the child welfare system. Cup takes advantage of her new freedom to start a drug-dealing operation with her stepfather, who also manages a stable of colorful prostitutes. Soon she meets a man, falls in love, and gets married. He convinces her to get a real job and learn to speak proper English--but he also abuses her and introduces her to crack cocaine. Cupcake flits from job to job, miraculously, given that she never fails to show up without some cocktail of narcotics floating in her system.

She hits rock bottom when, in desperation, she steals crack from her drug dealer. He beats her nearly to death, rapes her, and then leaves her body behind a dumpster. Cupcake wakes up days later, not sure of how she ended up in this state and from that moment begins to turn her life around. She was adopted by a lawyer who ran the law firm where she "worked," and slowly he assisted her in kicking the habit--with the help of an eccentric group of fellow addicts who became, at last, a family to her--and catching up on her education. With the support of her new family, she eventurally goes all the way to law school (although not without a few additional misadventures along the way) and joins one of the top law firms in the country.

Cupcake's story is an inspiring, at times hilarious, often distrubing, and deeply moving account of a singular woman who took on the worst of contemporary urban life and survived it with wit and a ferocious will. It updates classic memoirs like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Makes Me Wanna Holler, and gives a bold and gritty spin to contemporary memoirs like Finding Fish. At the center of it, Cupcake is a charming and inspiring narrator through the inferno of her life.©2006 Cupcake Brown; (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Unrelenting Tale of Adversity Overcome

Cupcake Brown had a terrifying childhood and young adulthood. She is orphaned, then sexually, emotionally, and physically abused in the foster system. She resorts to prostitution, lives homeless, and struggles with addiction. Her triumph over terrible circumstances is worth waiting for, but not for those who are easily offended. Her description of her hardships is explicit and uses language -- including frequent profanity -- fitting to the atrocities described. Author might not be ready for an acting career, but reads her own story with feeling and realism. A great pick for those who have a constitution strong enough to hear a disturbing story with much to teach.

Great Listen

Loves this book. I heard about it through an online book forum. It was worth the purchase. A must read.

The voice is just for you

The treatment is real yet I can’t comprehend it. I understand the recovery is up to individual

Realistic and Current

I work with women who had similar struggles like the main character. There were sad parts, happy moments...kept my attention the entire time

Amazing Story

Just wish the Narration matched the book. There's a lot left out that is in the book. Amazing story though!