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Holistic Guidance - A Piece of Cake: A Memoir
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.498500496073092
EAN: 9781400052295
ISBN: 1400052297
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2007-04-10
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 2007-04-10
Studio: Three Rivers Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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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, or homelessness.
Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty.
And that’s when things got interesting….
You have in your hands the strange, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating tale of a woman named Cupcake. It begins as the story of a girl orphaned twice over, once by the death of her mother and then again by a child welfare system that separated her from her stepfather and put her into the hands of an epically sadistic foster parent. But there comes a point in her preteen years—maybe it’s the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once—when Cupcake’s story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark comic blues opera. As Cupcake’s troubles grow, so do her voice and spirit. Her gut-punch sense of humor and eye for the absurd, along with her outsized will, carry her through a fateful series of events that could easily have left her dead.
Young Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, partying like a rock star, 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. But Cupcake’s unlikely tour through the cubicle world was paralleled by a quickening descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine use, till she eventually found herself living behind a Dumpster.
Astonishingly, she turned it around. With the help of a cobbled together family of eccentric fellow addicts and “angels”—a series of friends and strangers who came to her aid at pivotalmoments—she slowly transformed her life from the inside out.
A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contem-porary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination. Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original storyteller who will guide you on the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.
When it came time for me to talk, I wasn’t sure which parts of my past to tell, which to keep secret, and which to pretend never happened. Uncle Jr. had already seen the welts on my back, so he wasn’t too surprised when I told them about some of the physical abuse I endured at Diane’s. Everyone else hit the roof, except Daddy. He got really quiet and started balling and unballing his fists.
I continued my update. Experience had taught me that adults have trouble accepting the idea of children having sex. I decided that from then on, that part of my life never happened. I picked up the story by telling them about Fly, the Gangstas, and getting shot.
I was dying for a cigarette. So it seemed a good time to announce that I smoked cigarettes—and weed.
After a moment Sam looked at me, smiled, and handed me one of her Marlboros. I preferred menthols, but beggars can’t be choosers. I kicked back, took a long drag, and closed my eyes.
Daddy and Jr. were silent. They seemed a bit shocked and unsure about how to respond.
“Well, Cup,” Jr. said, “it’s a little too late to be trying to raise you now. But those cigarettes will kill you. And weed will only lead you to stronger drugs.”
He didn’t know how right he was. But for me, it was too late to be worrying about stronger drugs—the only worrying I did was whether I could find a connection to get some. So I just smiled, nodded, and took another hit off my cigarette.
The eerie quiet returned.
—from A Piece of Cake
Also available as a Random House AudioBook and eBook.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Comment: The only reason I didnt give this book five stars is because it went on a bit too long. Towards the end, it seemed to drag a bit. Overall, the book was incredibly interesting and the author's life was astonishing and seemed unbelievable at times. Its not that I think the stories are made up, but I had no idea that people could be functional and abuse drugs in the way the author abused drugs. She certaInly knows how to tell a story. This author proves that, in life, absolutely anything is possible. I think she is awfully brave to tell her story without holding anything back, in spite of the fact that she works at one of those prestigious, snooty law firms.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great!
Comment: This was one of the best books i read in a long time...i sold my first copy but TRUST i'm buying another one...JJ
Customer Rating:
Summary: Give me back my life !
Comment: You will definitely cry at the beginning of this book and I cried also at the end. While the middle seems long, it most certainly sets up the ending (Tears of Joy!). To me this book teaches me how fraigile lives can be and how many of us, willingly or unwillingly set our lives up for disaster (Sort term goals vs. Long term goals and False pride). Open your mind and open your soul with this miraculous book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars for a transparent life-revealing memoir
Comment: Many may criticize the way in which this story was written, but for those far removed from a similar way of life, it was just that ......A BOOK.
For those of us that have had a similar experience lived through the lives of one of our family or friends, it was a road trip through the minds of the one that we have prayed for to gain understanding about.
I have recommended this book to several people who struggle with someone dealing with a drug addiction. I must admit that it was very raw and vulgar and sometimes unbearable with the curse words. However, by the time I got to the end of the book, I had a whole new view about those struggling with drug addiction.
This book gave me the understanding to no longer judge and criticize those that we affectionately deemed "crackheads", but instead, it compelled me to pray for them and their families knowing that the spirit inside of them is really screaming for help. It also made clear that there are so many pre-existing conditions that lead many to the road of drugs as they try to run and escape from an unbearable past.
It is by Gods grace that many of us aren't posed with this way of life. Most of those whom are in this position would have never volunteered for their bout with drugs, but were placed in unfortunate situations that deprived them of living their rightful purpose, as Cupcake Brown so clearly explains.
I now understand that drug addiction is a spiritual battle. Although Cupcake made it very clear that you must be wise when dealing with someone on drugs, because they do become award winning manipulators. However, the battle is one that is out of their control and can only be addressed when the decision is made to do so and when the spiritual support is there to make a clean break from the underworld.
Cupcake, I admire your transparency. Your story should be made as a documentary to share with the millions of those back and forth out of intervention and recovery. You have made many of us more empathetic towards those in this position and I believe that your book will be a tool to empower so many others to have the same success that you have had.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Comment: This book is shocking, entertaining, inspiring, and absolutely wonderful. I'm so glad Cupcake Brown chose to share her outstanding story with the world. Although her story is heartbreaking at times, her writing is upbeat and kept me engaged in the story.
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