Motherhood in the suburbs is an adventure unto itself. Social systems are constructed on your children’s achievements, your helpfulness in your community and your popularity among your fellow soccer moms. It can be a boring existence and it can be one that is easily shattered when you step out of the Stepford Wives Club.

For Lara Love Hardin, her step out comes when her million dollar home on a quiet cul-de-sac is met by the police who are there to arrest her and uncover what she has been doing behind the Stepford Wives façade. Hardin has been stealing her neighbor’s credit cards to fund her heroin addiction and now she faces being charged with 32 felonies and a lengthy jail sentence as she goes from soccer mom to inmate S32179.

Hardin quickly discovers that much like the intricacies of suburban soccer mom life, prison life also offers it’s own social system where candy is currency and tampon boxes make furniture. Also, there is the sad realization that not even prison can quell the adolescent behaviors that permeate through mom social life. Hardin quickly learns what it takes to climb the prison social ladder and becomes “the shot caller.”

In a memoir of falling from soccer mom social status to numbered prisoner, Hardin shows that even rock bottom doesn’t mean it is the end of your life. After her stint in prison, she goes on to become a ghost writer, writing her way through healing and redemption in a memoir that has you laughing, crying and cursing your way through as Hardin shows you that the hardest part of all is forgiving yourself. Powerfully raw–this memoir made me struggle through her journey with her, as a mother myself, I found it hard to sympathize with her and her return to drug use despite the damage it was doing to her young children. However, what kept me reading and loving her writing and her journey was that she told it with humor and humility and ultimately by having her darkest secrets discovered she was able to find herself, find forgiveness and build a new life.

Book Information
The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin will be released on August 1, 2023 from Simon and Schuster with ISBN 9781982197667. This review correspond to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

Hardin is a fantastic writer and I commend her for this powerful memoir. Be prepared to feel like you’re right there with her along the journey of ups and downs and everything in between. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Five stars.

This was a beautiful book. I went in blind and was delighted to go on this journey.

At times, it’s a rough read, but stay with it, it’s worth the tough parts. There’s a lot of strength and joy in here.

Try your best to not read too much about it before you go in. It’s a wonderfully well written book that doesn’t shy away from the bad or let the light shine on the good.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read such a great book.

I immediately clicked request upon reading the description of this book. Wow! I enjoyed the story and Lara's voice. There were times I hated her, times I pitied her, and times I wanted to be her friend. An excellent memoir!

This book was slow to grab me. I was struggling to sympathize with her continual return to drug use, at the expense of her young children, relationships, etc. But then Lara pulled herself up by her bootstraps and became a mentor for others and got her life in order. The writing could have been a bit tighter, but I'm thrilled that she got things together, reunited with her boys, and finally selected a winner as a partner!

This was such a personal, emotional and heartfelt book! The subject matter is sometimes difficult to read, but it is so worth it. Lara Love Hardin speaks honestly about the trials and tribulations she has gone through in her life, what led her to the bad decisions and what leads her to the good ones. This is a story about lifting yourself up and forgiving yourself for your past mistakes, no matter how bad they were. It is definitely worth a read.

Highly recommend.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Lara Love Hardin for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Powerful, raw, and honest. This is a fasten your seatbelt ride with Mama Love. Lara shares with intimacy her family relationships, drug addiction struggles, jail life experiences and her jail mates, the recovery process, the love for her children and introduces us to the almost impossibility of success once a person is released from jail, prison or recovery therapy. The endless demands of court and probation appointments, therapy’s, fees, along with the label and stigma associated with the persons past, makes success almost impossible. Not to mention how unfair and unbalanced some of the rules and court decisions are. Certainly reading this people can understand how it’s just easier for a person to give up, throw up their hands and relapse. This book couldn’t have been more open and honest. Thank you for sharing Lara. You have most definitely enlightened me. I think everyone should read this story. Addiction is such a huge part of so many people’s lives and non addicts have a difficult time relating and ask “why can’t you just stop!?”

This was a brutally honest, hard to tell tale. But it was told with humor and humility. I really appreciated the author's struggle with with her past, even though she had successfully moved forward with her life. The looming cloud of discovery was a palpable character throughout her journey of finding self worth. I loved riding the lows and highs and learned a lot about forgiveness.

This book was the most engrossing book that I have read in years. I could not put it down and could feel her heartbreak and her joy. The Many Lives of Mama Love really puts a face on the struggle of quickly your life can change and what it takes to get back on top. I cannot wait to devour everything that Lara Love Hardin has written.

Award winning author Lara Love Hardin uses a wide-angle lens to showcase her descent from a suburban mom to a woman addicted to Vicodin and heroin, a sisterhood that developed in jail and programs she was admitted to and finally a climb out of the morass as a flourishing ghostwriter. It is a raw self examination that squeezes your heart and expands your mind. This was a woman who made some bad choices that caused her to spiral down. Well educated with a masters, the pain she carried seemed to be only alleviated by the drugs until she was stealing neighbor’s mail, money and credit cards. Love of her children was one of the reasons that prompted her to commit this identity theft as she needed money to turn on electricity and heat. Her fears and shame are laid bare throughout the book making this a compulsively readable story with a definite sympathetic character. The pages just turn themselves-well worth diving into.

In addition to reading with bated breath I found myself alternating between wanting to reach out and shake Lara and wanting to reach out and hug her. She does a beautiful job of sharing not only her experiences but her internal struggles alongside the complex issues of the judicial system.

As I read The Many Lives of Mama Love I could actually sense her transformation as I progressed through each chapter, her writing flourishing with each turn of the page. Reading it will either leave you with a more compassionate heart, an urge to reform our nation's jail/prison system, or inspired to find your passion and use it to serve others. Or perhaps all three.

I was hooked from the beginning, but about halfway through I was feeling a little bored. I did finish and I'm glad I did. Overall the story is good and the writing is great. I would recommend.

As soon as I received this book, I started reading. I could not put this one down. I was so absolutely and completely captivated by the story. This is Lara's story, a soccer mom who lives in a wealthy neighborhood harboring a secret - She is addicted to drugs and has started stealing from her neighbors to finance her habit. Lara is sent to jail and literally loses everything. The story then treks her journey to get (and stay) clean, her complicated relationship with her husband (who also uses), and what this conviction means for her as a mom. What I appreciated about this was that it shares a picture of a person who uses drugs that is different than what most would think. She doesn't hold back in her story, and she shares the difficulties and challenges - It's far from a straight path once convicted. It also talks about her "after" when she finds a second chance as a ghostwriter. This is a phenomenal memoir, and I'm so glad that Lara decided to share the story of her life just as she writes the stories of others. Thanks to NetGalley for the early look at this August 2023 release.

This memoir makes me feel like I’m watching a Lifetime movie (or any other TV movie). Lara's life has taken a turn for the worse. From drugs, stealing, ended up in jail, and finally starting to change her life after being in jail. She turned her life around and is a writer. Thanks to the publishers at Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ebook in order for a review.

This is the story of a well-educated woman who became addicted to drugs, wound up in jail, and fought like hell to reclaim her life. Think this couldn't happen to you? Guess again. If I had to sum up in one word The Many Lives of Mama Love: Humbling.

Many of us go through life expecting the worst couldn't possibly happen to us: Drug addiction? Imprisonment? Nah. Ms. Hardin's memoir isn't just a riveting book, it's a cautionary tale. Life can go off the rails, and that's when one's character becomes evident. That's the main message of this book... how a person can find oneself in a terrible situation and tenaciously work to recover their life.

At first, I felt horrified by the dysfunction evident in Ms. Hardin's life and how it impacted her children. But as her memoir progressed, I was steadfastly rooting for her to regain her family and her life. Through court dates, job offers denied, and an intimate partner who sank back into drug addiction, I wanted Ms. Hardin to succeed. None of us are perfect. Ms Hardin repeatedly demonstrated her commitment to her children and to leading a "normal" life.

As she continued her recovery, I felt grateful to those who saw beyond through her past and gave her opportunities. Without those people insightful enough to understand that "but for the grace of God, go I," Ms. Hardin's recovery would have been even harder. Thankfully, she was given a second chance by a judge, defense attorney, employer... and they did the right thing in giving her redemption.

Thank you Netgalley, Ms Hardin, and the publisher for this ARC copy. This is one of the most compelling books I've read, and I am grateful for Ms. Hardin's story.

It was definitely different from what I thought it was going to be but I enjoyed the read and the journey. It was interesting to see what a person will do in situations that I have never been in. It was fascinating to see what happens next.

Received a complimentary copy of The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin from Simon & Schuster/NetGalley. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

BOOK REPORT
The Many Lives of Mama Love is one of the best-written books I’ve read in a long time, and it provides its readers with some hard home truths about this nation’s criminal justice-industrial complex (my words, not the author’s). And I say that as someone who has seen said “justice” system work from a variety of vantage points, both personal and professional. It is such a money-making racket, and so incredibly cruel and unfair, for the most part, to anybody who is not rich and white.

It’s a shame, then, that Lara Love Hardin did herself and her readers a disservice by offering up what felt like sanitized versions of many things that happened in her life, as well as engaging in faux intimacy. And I say _that_ as someone who is a master at both; can’t cheat a cheater, dontcha know.

So, 3 stars from me, all the while wishing I could give 3.5.

DESCRIPTION
New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,” showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.

Imagine living in a beautiful neighborhood. Good neighbors and good schools. The houses and yards are beautiful. All is peaceful. Everything is great in California America. However, one of these families is not like the others. Sure, they look like a typical blended family from the outside: husband and wife with their children. But these parents are secretly addicted to heroin. Lara Love begins stealing from her neighbors, raiding their mailboxes, stealing credit cards-- all to keep up the normal family facade and keep up a drug habit. When she and her husband are finally caught, her neighbors dub her The Neighbor from Hell.

Convicted of 32 felonies, Lara does a year in Jail and manages to work her way up the ranks of jail society. Her husband continues to use drugs while in jail, but Lara gets clean. Her primary goal is to get her children back. This is her story. Lara not only gets her children back but uses her love of books to work her way into a publishing company.

Lara works her way up from being a heroin addict, to a ghostwriter. She refuses to let the shame of her past keep her down. Her writing career flourishes, with one of her books being featured in Oprah's Book Club. In this memoir, Lara tells the story of her journey from addict to successful writer.

This story brings to light how many incarcerated people are victims of a system that, in its very nature, makes it almost impossible to stay out of jail. I admire the author's tenacity. Her story is one of determination and hard work. I am glad she got a happy ending and I hope her book will pave the way for others to do the same.

Thank you Netgalley, Lara Love Hardin, and the publisher for this ARC copy.
The Many Lives of Mama Love had me pulled in from the beginning, and I'm usually not a memoir type of girl. However, I wanted to read this book because I'm a soccer mom but also because Lara's story could easily be so many mom's story. It's just the reality of the world we're living in, unfortunately.
This is how one who had it all can fall from grace, to find redemption, and rebuild it all.
Lara was a picture-perfect soccer mom that you read about it books. She became hooked on opiods and turned to theft and fraud to fund her habits, which leads to prison. Just as she was on top in the social class in the outside, Lara was on top of the social class in prison, too. Lara makes beautiful friendships in prison and starts her journey to redemption and rebuilding her life. In prison, these women give Lara her nickname Mama Love.
Throughout these pages, you'll find Lara's and her prison inmates' journey's hardships and healing.
Lara's vulnerability is raw and will cut through your core. I was engrossed in this book and needed to stay up and finish it. This story is one that will stay with me.

Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced ready!

Wow! Wow! Wow! Is all I can say. This book kept me up until 3am, as I could not put it down, finished in one evening. Now I want to go read all the other books she has had her hand in! Lara is a convicted felon with children and a husband. She and her husband are both arrested, their youngest child taken by CPS and Lara's world is shook. We read her first experiences with jail, the dynamics of the G block cell, the confusing court system and so much more. Lara has a way of putting a comedic spin on such hard topics that really sucks the reader in. I loved watching her progress, when she hit rock bottom and had a plan in place on how to move forward. She also shared that not all law enforcement is bad, she shows how they can be compassionate and advocates.

I will highly recommend this book and share it with others once available!