A Piece of Cake: A Memoir

Cupcake Brown

Feb 2006 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Bahni Turpin

About this audiobook

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 

Ratings and reviews

This story, Cupcakes story. Oh my goodness. The way she recalls her journeys and gives such life to just printed words! I was mesmerized to say the least.

This book was one that I could not put down once I started. My granddaughter and I literally split the book in half so we could share reading it. Every young female teen should read this phenomenon story of this woman's life.

read this book when I was 14 in a y.o detention center over twenty years ago it inspired me to change the life I was living just like the author

About the author

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.