A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
🧁 Bookish Reflection 🧁
Book: A piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
Published: 2006
Page Count: 535
I was first introduced to this book back in 2009 by my xbf's mum, who raved about how good this book was. I remember it being a very heavy read about a young Black girl, but that was as far as my memory stretched back to about this memoir.
This year, I felt compelled to pick this book back up again, 16 years later. My thoughts:
This re-read certainly wasn't a piece of cake.
Don't get me wrong, I like memoirs that read like fiction, i.e., how to say babylon by Safiya Sinclair & Finding Me by Viola Davis. However, 'A Piece of Cake' now reads to me as auto-fiction rather than as a memoir. It almost felt due to the writing style of this memoir, too unbelievable to be true. Now, I'm not at all questioning the validity of Brown's experiences, but something about the narration of this story this time around wasn’t sitting right with me.
Cupcakes' story is one that it interesting due to the themes of loss, parental responsibility, SA, family, the fostering system, grooming, etc. But I feel that this story would benefit from lots of revisions. I personally couldn't get behind the repetition of some of the on-goings in this book, which probably led to this book being 200 pages too long. Where was the editor? My guess was asleep 😩😭
This wasn't my only issue with A Piece of Cake on this re-read. It may be a minor to many, but... THE FONT SIZE!!!! Way too small, and way too many words crammed onto a page. Is there a newer edition with a larger font size? Is there an audiobook available? Kindle edition? Something? Either way, this re-read wasn't for me this time around. Which is such a shame, as I was really looking forward to re-reading this memoir.
If you have yet to read this memoir, please be sure to check the trigger warnings before reading - there are a lot!
Have you ever DNF'd a book that you've previously read & enjoyed, to find out that it just wasn't as good the second time round? Maybe it's just me 🫠