Angela M. (rhodapenmark) -
Helpful Score: 1
I thought Cupcake Brown's story was pretty fascinating. I couldn't put it down. I like memoirs and this one definitely felt very real and it was easy to kind of "get into her head" and it sucked me in from the beginning.
But overall, I agree with others who do not believe this is all a "true story". SO many things about it bugged me! I felt like it could have been 200 pages shorter and still been exactly the same book. The endless descriptions of drug use didn't impact me. There's a (fiction) novel by Luke Davies called 'Candy: A Novel of Love & Addiction' (later made into a movie with Heath Ledger & Abbie Cornish) that just brought the drug lifestyle to life in a way that this book didn't at all. It was hard for me to really feel the desperation or get the impact of her drug problems during much of the book. I felt very confused at times and the events of her story were not always clear (in my opinion).
The biggest issue for me as a reader was having such a difficult time just accepting all of the stuff she did (crime and violence)...it seemed like she was so blase about it and that really bothered me! I think I'm usually pretty understanding of peoples' antisocial behavior when I read books of this type, and I know abuse can do crazy things to a person, but I just got this vibe that she was an incredibly dangerous & angry person...even at the end, I just didn't get a real feeling that Cupcake was truly remorseful for ANY of the wrongs she'd done!
To me (probably because I couldn't relate to her recovery or her faith) the last 1/4 of the book was just a neverending string of cliches. I was so happy that she was finding a happier life and getting healthy, but every other paragraph was just cringeworthy for me. I'd recommend this to a person who doesn't mind reading a lot of "filthy" stuff but also believes in God.
But overall, I agree with others who do not believe this is all a "true story". SO many things about it bugged me! I felt like it could have been 200 pages shorter and still been exactly the same book. The endless descriptions of drug use didn't impact me. There's a (fiction) novel by Luke Davies called 'Candy: A Novel of Love & Addiction' (later made into a movie with Heath Ledger & Abbie Cornish) that just brought the drug lifestyle to life in a way that this book didn't at all. It was hard for me to really feel the desperation or get the impact of her drug problems during much of the book. I felt very confused at times and the events of her story were not always clear (in my opinion).
The biggest issue for me as a reader was having such a difficult time just accepting all of the stuff she did (crime and violence)...it seemed like she was so blase about it and that really bothered me! I think I'm usually pretty understanding of peoples' antisocial behavior when I read books of this type, and I know abuse can do crazy things to a person, but I just got this vibe that she was an incredibly dangerous & angry person...even at the end, I just didn't get a real feeling that Cupcake was truly remorseful for ANY of the wrongs she'd done!
To me (probably because I couldn't relate to her recovery or her faith) the last 1/4 of the book was just a neverending string of cliches. I was so happy that she was finding a happier life and getting healthy, but every other paragraph was just cringeworthy for me. I'd recommend this to a person who doesn't mind reading a lot of "filthy" stuff but also believes in God.
