I feel that many events in the memoir were very much exaggerated. Not so much the rape, but more the small details that Maya couldn't remember.  The things she felt that she needed to embellish to keep the story going and keep the reader intrigued. I feel like I am going to do that when I write my memoir. I have not had that many interesting things go on in my life, so all of the slightly interesting things I will end up writing about I will have to embellish a little. I will also have to exaggerate what I don't remember. Say if I had a bowl of Cheerios one (important) morning, I might have to say I had "a humongous bowl of O shaped, honey golden rings doused in liquid happiness". That was a little extreme, but you see the point. I would have to exaggerate the less important events in my life to keep the reader engaged in what I'm doing or writing about.
Maya Angelou embellishes her writing very well. She makes the less interesting things come to life in my head and lets the important (and more interesting) events speak for themselves. If she went into complete detail of every single thing, her life story would be overwhelming and slightly boring. And also a lot of writing.
I think I might have said this in past writing, but I am going to learn so much about writing my own memoir based on what I'm reading now. I have learned that it is easier for me to write about my childhood, so if I can take my childhood and make it interesting to read, then I'm already on my way to writing my own memoir. So in conclusion, embellishment does not need to be applied to every sentence, but it helps make a book fascinating.