A Piece of Cake

Book review by Deane Barker tags: fiction, addiction
An image of the cover of the book "A Piece of Cake"

My daughter bought me this for my birthday. She had read the back of it at the bookstore, and “thought I would find it interesting.”

It was riveting. It’s actually a fairly nondescript story of abuse, but it’s intense. The author is currently an attorney in San Francisco. The book begins with her mother’s death when she was 11, which begins a trip through the California foster care system. She becomes an alcohol- and drug-addicted child prostitute and things go downhill (!) from there.

Until she finally gets clean in her 20s, the author is a trainwreck of addiction. She talks of a world where she spent weeks or months high or drunk and goes years without being sober for a single full day. Given the things she did, I can’t believe she’s still alive.

In the depths of her addiction, she finally finds a way out in Alcoholics Anonymous. She talks of her path to sobriety and of the people who got her there. She was helped along the way by a series of people who let her know that they weren’t prepared to give up.

The story is both heartbreaking and redemptive. It isn’t overtly spiritual – and that’s not its main point – but it does talk of God, and the author credits Him for her eventual recovery.

Book Info

Cupcake Brown
472
  • I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
  • A softcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.

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