A Piece of Cake is a sincere and wonderfully written autobiography by author Cupcake Brown. Her memoir is one that tells the riveting story of her as a young African American woman going through tough times and ends with her finding herself and pulling her life together. Through the experiences presented in her book, she gave an inside look to readers about African American culture, conflict and violence, self-esteem. The story follows a plot line of a little girl whom at first has a great life; her family, although not together, is happy. La’Vette (better known as Cupcake) goes to a nice school, has a good home life, and loves her “mama” dearly. However, when La’Vette awakes one morning wondering why her mama’s alarm clock is screeching and
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Although I have known about AAE for quite some time, but I have never been around someone who uses it and have only heard about it briefly. I did not truly understand how different African American Vernacular English is from Standard American English until I read this book. Through the book, A Piece of Cake, I learned that AAE is a dialect that is similar to SAE, but has different grammatical and phonological aspects associated with it as well as certain vocabulary. For example, some of the vocabulary that Cupcake uses throughout the book is specific to AAE itself. She used the term “ghetto star” on page one hundred-thirty and described it as a popular term used among the African American gangs that symbolizes someone who is highly respected in the gang. Cupcake also goes on to describe a ghetto star as someone who is not afraid of doing things like fighting, killing, and robbing others. Another thing that can be learned about the cultural language is that the final syllable or morpheme of certain words are often reduced. For example, the word “your” is commonly said as “yo” in the book, and words ending with an “ing,” like jumping, are often pronounced like …show more content…
However, when the book came to a close, it told a wonderful story of a woman who was once at the bottom and brought her life into perspective while becoming successful. Through Cupcakes story, she showed African American culture through African American Vernacular English. A Piece of Cake also was enlightening to two particular themes, conflict and violence, and
Although I have known about AAE for quite some time, but I have never been around someone who uses it and have only heard about it briefly. I did not truly understand how different African American Vernacular English is from Standard American English until I read this book. Through the book, A Piece of Cake, I learned that AAE is a dialect that is similar to SAE, but has different grammatical and phonological aspects associated with it as well as certain vocabulary. For example, some of the vocabulary that Cupcake uses throughout the book is specific to AAE itself. She used the term “ghetto star” on page one hundred-thirty and described it as a popular term used among the African American gangs that symbolizes someone who is highly respected in the gang. Cupcake also goes on to describe a ghetto star as someone who is not afraid of doing things like fighting, killing, and robbing others. Another thing that can be learned about the cultural language is that the final syllable or morpheme of certain words are often reduced. For example, the word “your” is commonly said as “yo” in the book, and words ending with an “ing,” like jumping, are often pronounced like …show more content…
However, when the book came to a close, it told a wonderful story of a woman who was once at the bottom and brought her life into perspective while becoming successful. Through Cupcakes story, she showed African American culture through African American Vernacular English. A Piece of Cake also was enlightening to two particular themes, conflict and violence, and