A Piece of Cake

"I had been learning in 'street' rooms, while other children were learning in classrooms." ~ pg. 465

My goal was to read a good—no, captivating—memoir this month of March. Instead of spending more money buying a book when I have tons unread on my physical and eBook shelves, I browsed through my Kindle/NOOK library and found A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown. My purchase date was over 10 years ago! Oh, there were petty reasons why I never cracked the eBook seal. The content was too heavy. The book was too long (over 500 pages). I was not in the mood for non-fiction...blah blah blah. But no more excuses! I cleared my palette and finally read A Piece of Cake.

La'Vette went by many names. Her momma called her Cup. Her daddy called her Punkin. Everybody else called her Vette. Her real birth name, though, was Cupcake. And she lived a hard knock life after finding her mother dead. Since that moment, her life was fucked up. She was taken away from the only father she knew, thrown into the foster care system, forced to prostitute at age eleven, joined a gang just to belong to something, and succumbed to drugs and alcohol. She was brutally and involuntarily thrown into tough maturity. Need I remind you this is a memoir?

"Nobody wants to get struck by lightning, so everyone's afraid of it. Who the fuck's afraid of a cupcake?" ~ pg. 135

So many emotions while reading this true story. I wanted to choke the adults harming this abandoned black girl. I hated that her childhood was stolen; forced to fend for herself at an unbelievable age. I wanted to hug her and reassure it would get better. I wanted to pimp slap her when she gave into temptation. I needed Cupcake to be alright. But most of all, I wanted to see Cup win. I wanted A Piece of Cake to end on a good note telling a helluva testimony. And that it did!

"I didn't realize how silent silence was." ~ pg. 421

So why only 4 out of 5 hearts? There were chapters upon chapters dedicated to her excessive drug usage lifestyle. Maybe the repetition was purposefully to show that Cupcake got drunk, went to work, got high, went to sleep, got drunk, went to work, got high, went to sleep, got drunk, went to work, damn near overdosed, skipped sleep... It was a bit overkill after 50 or so consecutive pages of this routine. However, the overall themes are what's important: survival, addiction, and trust (whether it is trusting God, family, friends or self-esteem). Heavy topics, I know. What a deep book that kept it all the way real.

Title: A Piece of Cake
Author: Cupcake Brown
Published: January 2006
Pages: 534
Edition: eBook
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤