Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)

A Piece of Cake

A Memoir

A Memoir

A Memoir

A Memoir

By Cupcake Brown

By Cupcake Brown

By Cupcake Brown

By Cupcake Brown

By Cupcake Brown
Read by Bahni Turpin

By Cupcake Brown
Read by Bahni Turpin

By Cupcake Brown
Read by Cupcake Brown

By Cupcake Brown
Read by Cupcake Brown

Best Seller
Paperback $18.00

Apr 10, 2007 | ISBN 9781400052295

Ebook $12.99

Feb 28, 2006 | ISBN 9780307345479

Audiobook Download $24.96

Feb 28, 2006 | 1267 Minutes

Audiobook Download $14.98

Feb 28, 2006 | 333 Minutes

All Formats
+
    A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
    Paperback $18.00
    Apr 10, 2007 | ISBN 9781400052295

    Buy from Other Retailers:

    See All Formats (3) +

    Paperback
    –

    • Paperback $18.00

      Apr 10, 2007 | ISBN 9781400052295

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Ebook
    +

    • Ebook

      Feb 28, 2006 | ISBN 9780307345479

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Audio (2)
    +

    Buy the Audiobook Download:

    About A Piece of Cake

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The heart-wrenching, uplifting tale about a woman named Cupcake

    “[Cupcake] Brown’s confessional . . . memoir is one you can’t easily put down. Her life is nothing short of a miracle.”—Chicago Sun-Times

    There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, and homelessness.

    Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty. 

    And that’s when things got interesting. . .     

    Orphaned by the death of her mother and left in the hands of a sadistic foster parent, young Cupcake Brown learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. 

    A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving in its frankness, this is the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.

    Praise for A Piece of Cake

    “[Brown] reflects now with insight and honesty on her experiences. . . . An engaging account . . . of a remarkable life filled with pain and wisdom, hope and redemption.”—San Fracisco Chronicle

    “Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.”—Washington Post 

    About A Piece of Cake

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The heart-wrenching, uplifting tale about a woman named Cupcake

    “[Cupcake] Brown’s confessional . . . memoir is one you can’t easily put down. Her life is nothing short of a miracle.”—Chicago Sun-Times

    There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, and homelessness.

    Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty. 

    And that’s when things got interesting. . .     

    Orphaned by the death of her mother and left in the hands of a sadistic foster parent, young Cupcake Brown learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. 

    A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving in its frankness, this is the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.

    Praise for A Piece of Cake

    “[Brown] reflects now with insight and honesty on her experiences. . . . An engaging account . . . of a remarkable life filled with pain and wisdom, hope and redemption.”—San Fracisco Chronicle

    “Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.”—Washington Post 

    About A Piece of Cake

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The heart-wrenching, uplifting tale about a woman named Cupcake

    “[Cupcake] Brown’s confessional . . . memoir is one you can’t easily put down. Her life is nothing short of a miracle.”—Chicago Sun-Times

    There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, and homelessness.

    Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty. 

    And that’s when things got interesting. . .     

    Orphaned by the death of her mother and left in the hands of a sadistic foster parent, young Cupcake Brown learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. 

    A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving in its frankness, this is the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.

    Praise for A Piece of Cake

    “[Brown] reflects now with insight and honesty on her experiences. . . . An engaging account . . . of a remarkable life filled with pain and wisdom, hope and redemption.”—San Fracisco Chronicle

    “Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.”—Washington Post 

    About A Piece of Cake

    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.

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    About Cupcake Brown

    Cupcake Brown was born in the heart of the San Diego ghetto. After graduating from law school in 2001, she went on to practice at Bingham McCutchen, one of the nation’s largest law firms, and became a motivational speaker. Brown… More about Cupcake Brown

    About Cupcake Brown

    Cupcake Brown was born in the heart of the San Diego ghetto. After graduating from law school in 2001, she went on to practice at Bingham McCutchen, one of the nation’s largest law firms, and became a motivational speaker. Brown… More about Cupcake Brown

    About Cupcake Brown

    Cupcake Brown was born in the heart of the San Diego ghetto. After graduating from law school in 2001, she went on to practice at Bingham McCutchen, one of the nation’s largest law firms, and became a motivational speaker. Brown… More about Cupcake Brown

    About Cupcake Brown

    Cupcake Brown was born in the heart of the San Diego ghetto. After graduating from law school in 2001, she went on to practice at Bingham McCutchen, one of the nation’s largest law firms, and became a motivational speaker. Brown… More about Cupcake Brown

    Product Details

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Parenting | Self-Improvement

    Paperback | $18.00
    Published by Crown
    Apr 10, 2007 | 480 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9781400052295

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Parenting | Self-Improvement

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Crown
    Feb 28, 2006 | 480 Pages | ISBN 9780307345479

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Parenting | Self-Improvement | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $24.96
    Published by Random House Audio
    Feb 28, 2006 | 1267 Minutes | ISBN 9781415931912

    Category: Biography & Memoir | Parenting | Self-Improvement | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $14.98
    Published by Random House Audio
    Feb 28, 2006 | 333 Minutes | ISBN 9780739325025
    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
    Looking for More Great Reads?
    21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
    Get the latest updates about Cupcake Brown
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    By clicking SIGN UP, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime.
    Dismiss
    Thanks!
    Something awesome is on its way.
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Raise kids who love to read

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    Today's Top Books

    Today's Top Books

    Want to know what people are actually reading right now?
    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook