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A Piece of Cake (Abridged): A Memoir Audiobook
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(4.00) - 9,280 listener ratings
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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.
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"This book just ripped my heart out yet I could not stop reading it. This women did not live a charmed life and in no way could I imagine living through the horrors of rape, prostitution, and drug addiction the way she did. However through all the unsavory things she found herself dragged into, she believed deep down there was something better. I was rooting for the Cupcake who was fighting her to way back to that something better. I learned from this book that one day life can become unrecognizable in the blink of an eye, and to never judge the choices people make to cope with their ravaged lives. This was most heartbreaking yet inspiring book I've ever read. I admire her guts and heart."
— Vicki (5 out of 5 stars)
A Piece of Cake Listener Reviews
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" Very good book loved it "
— 148fanwill, 2/19/2014 -
" I don't even know where to begin... Honestly, this is the most inspiring and heartbreaking book I have ever read. This book made me laugh, angry, cry and at the end, I was in awe. A heavy read and definitely NOT recommended for young readers. "
— Cecilia, 2/11/2014 -
" Not the best writing, but I definitely enjoyed Cupcake Browns story of tragedy to triumph. She was dealt a bad hand; her mother died in her arms at age 11, she was taken away from her family and placed in foster care, she was raped as a child, physically abused, molested on several accounts, was involved in prostitution, became a gang member in South Central LA in the early 90's and eventually became a completely sold-out crack addict. She tells her story in a very raw manor, there is no sugar coating, which I appreciate. After being a drug addict for 14 years, she manages to turn her life around and now practices law in SFO. Impressive and inspiring. "
— Latay, 2/7/2014 -
" i cried so much in this book. "
— bella, 2/3/2014 -
" This was a great read. How lucky can one person be when she decides to change her way of living. Good things start to happen to Cupcake for the better. Some parts I had a hard time believing it to be true. Even after getting her law degree, it seems like she still has not quite master the English language, although she claims that English was her best subject. I did enjoy reading this book and would recommend it. "
— Shirley, 2/1/2014 -
" So I'm on page 70 and so far Cupcake has found her mother dead, been abandoned by her father, whipped and beaten by a foster mother which made her have a miscarriage after she was knocked up from prostituting herself during various attempts to flee foster care. Yeah, so, there better be some freaking ray of light at the end of it all, so far very bleak... "
— Caitlin, 1/23/2014 -
" Compelling story and an amazing story of survival and recovery but very tedious reading-- too many details in some areas and not enough in others. "
— Jelahn, 1/15/2014 -
" This memior is so hardcore. The struggles she goes through like the death of her mother, jumping from foster home to foster, domestic violence, prostitution, gang activity, and drug addiction. i highly recommend this book. i really enjoyed this book. "
— tasha, 1/13/2014 -
" fantastic book, the writting was not great but the story couldn't be better and all based on a true story wow "
— Rose-marie, 1/1/2014 -
" Raw and Inspirational! I want to meet Cupcake Brown after reading this book. All of my emotions were tapped through this book. I cried, laughed, grieved, was angry, and liberated! Bravo!!!! "
— Angele, 12/11/2013 -
" I marked it as finished -- not because I actually read the whole thing, but because I couldn't bear to actually finish it. So badly written and generally annoying. The life story of the author is an amazing tale -- too bad she's not an amazing teller of tales. "
— Kristi, 11/21/2013 -
" This book was so good that I read it by candlelight while on vacation up North last summer!I couldn't wait to see how Cupcake's life would turn out. Excellent book! "
— Kris, 11/19/2013 -
" I LOVE this book! Funny, sad, and heartwarming all at the same time. "
— Heather, 10/14/2013 -
" I encourage for everybody to read this book. "
— Cheryl, 10/10/2013 -
" Waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long. I absolutely respect the struggle and need to describe every single detail of a tortured life but this book verges on the absurd. "
— Wendy, 10/1/2013 -
" Wow. This was an eye opener. I was hooked from the beginning. "
— Andrea, 9/26/2013 -
" An awesome, raw, genuine, emotional autobiography!!! "
— Brandy, 2/11/2013 -
" The writing is so bad, I can't get past the second chapter. "
— Carmel, 12/28/2012 -
" This book was totally and completely awesome!! The stuff this poor girl went through in her life is amazing! So many times I sat there going Holy Crap!! To have over come all that happened to her it makes you to hug her and applaud her all at the same time!! "
— Leah, 11/1/2012 -
" Found it very raw and very honest "
— Shell, 10/13/2012 -
" This book is dfeinately for older people but a book just like runaway, this biography truly keeps you on the edge of your seat "
— Olivia, 9/23/2012 -
" An amazing story, but terribly written. I have no doubt that she is an amazing woman but this was hard to get through due to the horrible writing "
— Sandie, 8/12/2012 -
" Very powerful. I read through it very quickly. Touching, sad, and scary in some parts but it really shows you that your situation doesn't have to keep you down. "
— Ana, 8/5/2012 -
" It took a while to get into this book but once I did I couldn't put it down. This book was so inspirational that I looked at the author's website to find more about how she had clawed her way out of desperation to become so successful. It proves you can do anything in life if you want it badly. "
— Felicity, 2/24/2012 -
" Some sections are just too sentimental. But it gave me goosebumps in the very end. Inspiring. "
— Mahawa, 7/26/2011 -
" This is a must read novel. It is the true story of a woman who went from poverty,abandonment, physical and sexual abuse, drugs and gangs to law school and becoming a successful attorney and keynote speaker. Amazing! Inspiring! "
— Onecotton, 6/24/2011 -
" This is the most inspirational book I've ever read! I always recommend this book! I love, love, loved it! "
— Kara, 6/22/2011 -
" Loved loved loved. A riveting story -- it is hard to believe it really happened. "
— Michael, 6/15/2011 -
" A great memoir if you, like me, enjoy a good tragic horrifying story with a happy ending. The happy ending got a little boring for me, frankly. But it's a pretty intense tale with a pretty inspiring finale. "
— Sharon, 6/15/2011 -
" Probably the best book I've ever read. "
— Christina, 6/11/2011 -
" Amazing story about a woman who overcomes so much in her life (drugs, gangs, prostitution) to eventually graduate from Harvard Law school. I wish it wasn't riddled with profanity so I could suggest it to my students. I listened to it on CD and it was nice to hear her voice tell her own story. "
— Lauren, 6/9/2011 -
" I'm probably not going to finish this one, to depressing for me...... "
— Heather, 6/7/2011 -
" This was a pretty crazy story...but with a remarkable ending. Just wish Cupcake didn't repeat herself so often. "
— Dara, 6/3/2011 -
" Amazing! <br/> <br/>You will never want to put this down. "
— Nicole, 5/24/2011