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A Piece of Cake
by Cupcake Brown
Crown Publishers
ISBN 1-4000-5228-9
Published February 2006 - Hardcover - 470 pages - $24.95

I was in tears by the end of chapter two.  If you think you have it bad, there's always someone worse off than you.  I love that saying - it keeps me going.  Ms. Cupcake Brown first came to my attention when I saw the last fifteen minutes of her on the Montel Williams Show.  I was riveted and shocked at what she was saying.  Shocked again was I when she said she was now a successful lawyer.  This strong African American woman rattled off the horrors in her young life, and with dignity and grace, she sat there composed and almost serene.  I had to read her book.  Losing her mother at a young age and not being able to stay with her stepfather, she and her brother were sent to live in a foster home with the most evil of women.  She faced hunger, beatings, being screamed and cursed at, and was essentially a maid in the house.  She was raped at eleven years old, had her first taste of alcohol and weed shortly thereafter, and turned to prostitution for the first time.  She ingested whatever she could, mostly for free, and had her fill of pills, weed, booze, LSD, cocaine, crack, whatever it took to dull the pain.  She was repeatedly returned to her foster mother after running away.  Then, at thirteen, she found she was pregnant - the rest is unbelievably gruesome.  By this time, school was just a memory.  All this before she became a gang member, and all before her sixteenth birthday.  And she had a strange relationship with God.  She moved on to get jobs, but her insatiable and out-of-control drug use and drinking was becoming serious.  The rest of the book is just so incredibly inspirational.  Visit Cupcake Brown at her website at www.cupcakebrown.com for more information.
Conclusion - Harrowing and disturbing but triumphant.