A Piece of Cake

No, I’ve not been scoffing again, this is a book of that title. I read this on holiday, it’s an autobiography by a lady called Cupcake Brown – what an awesome name! I want a name like that. You can buy it in the usual formats here on Amazon or you can download it for free or read it free on line here at The Ultimate EBook Library

Now I won’t give too much away other than what is contained in the accompanying descriptions of the book should you click on any links to buy or read, but I will say that I cried reading this book… a lot. I read it in two sittings (or lyings) as I just couldn’t stop reading it. I was drawn in from the first few lines and I stayed a part of this lady’s life as a privileged onlooker until the last page.

Let me tell you something, again without giving too much away. I am the type of person who loves books with pictures and no, I don’t mean children’s books. I always flick through for the pictures first and I also scour the bits of the book that are not the actual text before I begin the text. I read the back, the front, the inside cover, the fly pages, the back cover, the bar code… nothing goes unread and no photo goes unseen.

For some strange reason, I can only call it the hand of fate, I didn’t perform my usual pre-reading ritual with this book. I’d read the blurb on the back and I got stuck right in. As I say I was immersed from the start. This is a tale of a sorry, sorry existence, of deprivation, desolation, abuse and bad choices by the score. It’s unthinkable what happened to this lady and incredible what becomes of her.

Throughout the whole story I felt a definite affinity with her on one key issue, that of her self proclaimed, unashamed admission and acceptance of her ugliness. It hurt to hear how she felt about herself and her self description conjured up an image in my head of the author and I pitied her but at the same time I understood her, I know how it feels to be ugly I thought as I read.

When I’d finished, I will never forget this moment, I was lying on a low sun lounger by the pool, music was playing softly from inside the villa, it was hot, sunny, just after mid day. There was no one around, Nick was inside having a ‘hide from the sun’ siesta. I read the last page and clutched the book to my chest and had a good old sob. I felt elated and proud at the strength of my fellow woman and of mankind in general. I felt uplifted, stronger, happy and sad all at the same time.

Then I moved to put the book down on the table beside me so I could get up and go get a cuddle from my partner… now remember I’d had this book all but glued to my hands for two days. I’d read it lying on sun beds, bobbing along on pool lilo’s, I’d held it up to shield my eyes from the sun, I’d layed it down while I was tanning my back, I’d rescued it from near dips in the pool, I’d dozed off with it on my face and yet it never did what it did when I put it on the table beside me… it opened on a full page photograph at the back, one I hadn’t noticed or known existed, a photo of a strikingly beautiful lady… I gasped “Are you Cupcake?” I spoke aloud in my disbelief to the photograph as I picked it up again to check and yes, she was Cupcake.

Now I’m not giving much away as most people will find the photo before they start reading the book, but not I and that is why this book really, really struck me. I didn’t question for one second throughout the book that Cupcake was as ugly as she described herself yet when I saw her I knew that Cupcake wasn’t ugly at all, she never had been, she had just been told she was, she had been made to believe she was and that sure knowledge she had of her own ugliness led her to some ugly places and down some ugly paths and to some ugly people and into some ugly situations and to commit some ugly acts when all along she was beautiful, after everything that happened to her she was beautiful still.

I sat there and sobbed some more, for Cupcake and for me and for all women who are made to feel ugly by the world. It’s so unfair and it’s so wrong and it’s so bad and I hate it that so many of us live a life feeling like we are somehow sub standard, somehow tainted, somehow unworthy of good things, unworthy of good people because somewhere down the line someone told us we were ugly or made us feel ugly and we believed them and carried that belief throughout our lives and hit ourselves repeatedly with it and allowed it to beat us down so we felt unworthy, disempowered, second class, undeserving of anything good.

Finally that day I could see that maybe I’m no that ugly either, the doubts were gone, I’d accepted my beauty.

It’s a harrowing read but worth it if you can bear to be dragged to the depths of humanity, the pit of human sorrow and if you’re prepared to be inspired by the stop start climb to self healing, self belief, self worth and self acceptance.