A Piece of Cake: A Memoir is a book about Cupcake Brown and it is written by her also, who was a child prositute and a crack addict. She is now an attorney for a major law firm.

Plot introduction

Cupcake Brown's mother died when she was 11, in 1976. The custody of her and her brother went to a both germaphobic and abusive stranger, as their birth father only wanted their social security checks. Their foster mother encouraged her discharged nephew to rape Cupcake repeatedly. She learned how to drink, smoke marijuana, and charge for sex from a prositute. Her next foster father, ubder the guise of "cheerleading practice" traded her LLSD and cocaine for oral sex. She moved in with her great aunt in South Central L.A., where she joined a gang. She narrowly survived a shooting, when she was barely 16, which caused her to stop being a gang member. Her boyfriend taught her how to freebase, but there was crack which was easier. Soon, she was a trash-can junkie, taking everything and anything. When she woke up behind a dumpster one morning, scarcely-dressed and more than near death, she admitted that she needed help.

Reception

A Publishers Weekly review says, "Booksellers, watch out--Cupcake's gonna sell like hotcakes".^[1] A Kirkus Reviews review says, "Brown's relentless litany of crimes and cruelties tests readers' endurance and at times makes it impossible to empathize with her younger self. Yet her life's amazing outcome goes a long way to justify her appealingly inspirational conclusion that maybe anything is possible".^[2] Danna Bell-Russel, of Library Journal, reviewed the audio book saying, " Bahni Turpin is a good reader, but her voice is a bit too immature for many sections of this book. For public libraries and those with collections on addiction and recovery".^[3]

References