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Let's face it. We all know the expression "You only live once." Or, "Anything is possible if you put your mind to it." No matter how many times we may say these types of things to our friends or to ourselves, there are just as many other times where we brush that "go get 'em" attitude aside in favor of the easy way out because we are too lazy, too afraid, too set in our ways to actually do what it takes to succeed.
In her relentlessly crushing yet ultimately uplifting debut memoir, Cupcake Brown relays the down-and-dirty details of her disaster-prone life with such vigor and frankness that readers will be shocked to realize that she actually made it far enough to work through her problems without giving in to the weight of them, let alone graduate magna cum laude from college (without a high school diploma, I might add), finish law school, pass the bar exam, and publish a bound-to-be bestselling book, all the while remaining completely sober. It is a wonder that one human being could accomplish so much given the circumstances.
When Cupcake was 11 years old, her mother died from an epileptic seizure at the age of 34. Not soon after, Cupcake and her brother Larry were taken from the only father they ever knew and sent to live with their real father, Mr. Burns. Despite the fact that Mr. Burns had never paid child-support or visited his children, he was given legal custody by the state of California. Rather than take care of the kids he never wanted in the first place, he shuffled them off to live in a foster home, run by a violent and viciously manipulative woman who had been accused of "accidentally" killing two of her charges a few years earlier, and whose nephew repeatedly raped Cupcake for his own sick pleasure. Of course, the corrupt "don't see, don't act" child welfare system never stepped in, leaving Cupcake no choice but to run away and try to make it on her own. At 11.
In the coming years, Cupcake would run away from Diane's abusive care a number of times, only to be taken back by the police, a worried neighbor, or a "concerned" social worker. In that time, she became a child prostitute, turning tricks for truck drivers, other foster fathers, and even cops. She smoked pot, drank copious amounts of alcohol and took drugs, from LSD and cocaine to crystal meth. At 13, she was brutally beaten by Diane's daughter and the rest of the foster children living in the house at the time, and consequently lost the baby she was carrying from an unknown father. At 14, she fled to South Central Los Angeles to live with her great-aunt and four male third-cousins, and joined a gang called the Eight-Tray Gangster Crips. Although gang life provided her with the love and support she lacked in the past, it further encouraged her participation in illegal activities (robbing, stealing, dealing), taught her how to use various weapons in drive-by shootings, and deepened her love for and addiction to crack, PCP, and other hard drugs. On her sixteenth birthday, she was shot twice in the back by a rival gang member and was told that she might not ever walk again. But, miraculously, she recovered.
Believe it or not, this all takes place in the first third of the book. Over the next 300 or so pages, Cupcake continues to describe her experiences --- flitting in and out of various 9-to-5 jobs (while still on drugs, mind you), a failed marriage, and dilapidated living arrangements (including, at one point, a dumpster). To say that readers will be amazed that she didn't wind up in jail or dead in an alley from an overdose is a gross understatement.
It is only in the last 100 pages that she actually deals with the logistics of her recovery. With the same strength and determination she used to run her life into the ground, Cupcake embraced the process of recovery. She started going to a 12-step program for recovering addicts and made friends (including her sponsor and surrogate mother) who would change her life for the better. With the support of her unbelievably compassionate boss (she worked as a legal secretary), her family, and her new-and-improved self, she turned her life around to such an extent that anyone familiar with her past (not to mention the reader) would surely find this stable, successful, and sober woman virtually unrecognizable.
To read Cupcake Brown's memoir is to witness the full range of life's possibilities, both positive and negative. In an age where spewing your personal tragedies onto the page and sharing them with billions of scandal-obsessed unknowns has become quite commonplace, it is not surprising that this book will satisfy the likes of Oprah and the primetime media circuit. What makes A PIECE OF CAKE so momentous and different, however, is that Brown's is not a story full of privileged complaints, grandiose generalizations, or race or class inspired clichés. It is a true story told by a woman in her own vernacular who needed to prove to herself that she could beat all the odds to accomplish the virtually impossible. Remarkable.
--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling
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