A Piece of Cake
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

Cupcake Brown. (2006). A Piece of Cake. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Cupcake Brown. 2006. A Piece of Cake. Books on Tape.

Cupcake Brown, A Piece of Cake. Books on Tape, 2006.

Cupcake Brown. A Piece of Cake. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2006.

OverDrive Product Record

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title

A Piece of Cake

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1. • role: Author
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   • bioText: 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 is the author of the New York Times bestselling A Piece of Cake: A Memoir. She lives in San Francisco. To learn more, visit cupcakebrown.com.
     
     Bahni Turpin is an ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles. She has guest starred in many television series, including NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, What About Brian, and The Comeback. Her film credits include Brokedown Palace, Crossroads, and Daughters of The Dust. Ms. Turpin won the Odyssey Award for The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. She has also received many AudioFile Earphones Awards for her unforgettable narration, including one for Precious by Sapphire, and for the National Book Award finalist and Oprah Book Club Pick The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. She's also a member of the cast recording of The Help, which won numerous awards.
   • name: Cupcake Brown
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2006-10-17T00:00:00-04:00

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title

A Piece of Cake

fullDescription

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 

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Cupcake Brown was dealt a horrendous hand in life. When she was 11, her mother died. Her "daddy" was not really her daddy, so she was placed with her biological father. He was looking for Social Security checks and insurance. So begins a life of violent foster care, alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, and gang-banging. At 25, after a four-day bender behind a dumpster, Cupcake begins the road to recovery (12 steps), goes to college, and even graduates from law school. Bahni Turpin's sensitive performance treads a fine line between depicting the seemingly endless downhill slide and maintaining a light enough touch to keep the listener engaged. Turpin deftly expresses a wide range of emotions--from outrage and misery to healing and optimism. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 3, 2006
     Brown reads her own horrific memoir of childhood paradise lost, sexual degradation and drug-fueled bad times with a surprising twinkle in her eye. Having made it through to the other side and a stable life, Brown revisits the ugliest places in her past, her matter-of-fact voice refusing to shy away from any of the brutal details. Brown does not milk her story for sympathy (although that is implicit in its very telling); she merely chronicles its twists and turns, its tragic losses and terrible indignities, choosing to honor her past by exposing it in its entirety. Brown's voice is measured and wry, exposing the foibles of her own stunted good sense at the same time as she documents the heinous callousness of the adults who by turns mistreat and neglect her after the untimely death of her mother. Her reading lacks something in emotion and professionalism, but its no-nonsense quality is the mark of an unhurried, self-taught storyteller. Simultaneous release with the Crown hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 21, 2005).

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Orphaned, abused, rejected, and forgotten, young Cupcake Brown could have become a casualty of a gravely flawed child welfare system. However, anyone who listens to this riveting audiobook will hear the voice of a strong, clear-eyed survivor tell an unforgettable story of innocence lost and success found. Brown narrates her memoir with candor and irresistible appeal as she reveals the horrors of addiction and the cruelties that a child can suffer. Despite the gravity of Brown's story, her voice is far from self-pitying or preachy. Instead she paints an ultimately inspiring portrait of herself, and that person is one any listener would want to get to know. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 15, 2006
     Brown is a survivor; she was born into a happy family with a loving mother and a father who, though he lived away from her, was very much a part of her life. She then discovered her mother dead, a victim of a seizure. The author is then taken away from the only family she has ever known and given to her biological father, who promptly puts her in the hands of a violent foster mother whose only desire is to cram her house with children and take their benefits. Brown decides to run away and ends up in a world of prostitution, alcohol, and drugs. After finding herself behind a dumpster, addicted to crack and alcohol, Brown finds a way to turn her life around. With the help of a new support system of friends and the family she had once lost, she becomes clean and sober and decides to go to college and become a lawyer. Listening to the story of how she juggled school and work and dealt with a world she never thought she could be part of is uplifting and inspirational. Bahni Turpin is a good reader, but her voice is a bit too immature for many sections of this book. For public libraries and those with collections on addiction and recovery."Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress"

     Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from November 21, 2005
     Cupcake Brown (that's her real name) was 11 in 1976 when her mother died. Custody of Brown and her brother was given to a stranger—their birth father—who only wanted their social security checks. He then left them with an abusive foster mother who encouraged her nephew to rape Brown repeatedly. Brown got better and better at running away. A prostitute taught her to drink, smoke marijuana and charge for sex. Her next foster father traded her LSD and cocaine for oral sex. Eventually she went to live with a great-aunt in South Central L.A., where she joined a gang. Almost 16, having barely survived a shooting, she decided to quit gangbanging. Drugs were her new best friends. A boyfriend taught her to freebase, but then there was crack, which was easier. Before long she was a "trash-can junkie," taking anything and everything. It wasn't until she woke up behind a Dumpster one morning, half-dressed and more than half-dead, that she admitted she needed help. Brown conveys this all in gritty detail, and her struggle to come clean and develop her potential—she's now an attorney with a leading California firm and a motivational speaker—ends her story on a high note. Booksellers, watch out—Cupcake's gonna sell like hotcakes.

popularity

1728

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4. • value: Nonfiction

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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,...

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