Lara Love was an addict and made some really bad choices. In this memoir she talks about her addiction, her time in jail, but mostly her time on probation and how the system is set up for many newly released prisoners to fail. She went on to be a famous ghost writer and is now also writing under her own name. This book explores addition and relationships and their impact on a family, as well as how a newly sober and released person must navigate all of the requirements of probation, family court, getting and holding jobs when no one will hire you, and being ready for the workforce.
This is quite a book.

This book is a mash-up of Orange is the New Black, Hillbilly Ellegy, and a Jeannette Wall book. She writes about her struggles so honestly. She says over and over again how scared she was for her past to come out that she took ahold of the narrative herself. If you like social justice books or just memoirs, definitely put this one on your list.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

I LOVE this book. Lara is honest and real as she depicts what happened to her after her suburban soccer mom life fell apart. She is a heavy drug user, and after beginning to steal from friends and neighbors, is convicted of 37 felonies and sent to jail in Santa Cruz. This ended up being the best thing for her as she gets the chance to turn her life around. It's not easy, and she shines a light on the issues facing people convicted of crimes. I was rooting for her and for her family throughout! I highly recommend this one!

Thank you @simonbooks @netgalley and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC before it is published in exchange for my honest review.

Lara Love Hardin asks “How do you move beyond the worst thing you’ve done in your life?” on an Instagram post.
Her memoir recalls her notorious headline as “The Neighbor From Hell” (still searchable online) convicted of 32 felonies including identity theft of her neighbors as she funded her addiction to heroin while still attempting to create a stable life for her sons.
Her story recounts her time as an inmate, as well as her difficult path to redemption in our criminal justice system.

This memoir made me think about how we, as a society, are often too reluctant to offer one another a second chance to be productive citizens, how we can effect change to improve our criminal justice system and be more compassionate.

When we focus on holding someone accountable for a crime, we overlook that person’s value as a human being. We need to think about how we can offer programs of rehabilitation and make the journey to redemption possible.

I was impressed by Mama Love’s grit and determination to return to her sons, and make a life for herself when the odds were stacked against her success.
There are many more lessons in this incredible book, and I would add this to your nonfiction reading right away.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️must read memoir (Buy it Tuesday)

Read this if
💗 you enjoy reading memoirs
🙌🏻 believe in forgiveness and second chances
🫶🏻 love excellent narrative nonfiction writing
🌅 want to read about an incredible mother who worked hard to return to her family & society
❤️Just as an anecdote- I kept calling this book The Many Loves of Mama Love and this is a great alternate title to have in my mind. I feel she is a support and love for many people in her life.❤️

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin is the super compelling story of a woman living a seemingly wonderful, normal, life as a suburban mother of four boys who becomes addicted to narcotics. To support her habit, she steals from others and is arrested and convicted of 32 felonies. This is the story of this very low time in her life and how she overcomes so many roadblocks, both personal and systemic, to become a successful writer and to reintegrate into life as a mother and wife. Her writing is strong and propulsive and reads like fiction! Highly recommend!!

This book will surely be compared to Orange is the New Black, and it does touch on the prison system, but it’s more so a look back at the resilience and path of one woman whose life surely looked like it was on a tailspin into an abyss of drug use and prison.

Lara Love Hardin has had books on bestseller lists, she’s lunched with Oprah and had The Dalai Lama look into her soul. She was also an addict, has been in jail, has stolen from her neighbors and lost custody of her kids. This novel is her coming out and also her battle cry for those in a broken system and/or those who create negative narratives about themselves. Here she details her dysfunctional relationships, her addictions, her fight for her kids and how she launched her successful career.

This is a very well written memoir on a subject I’ve read about before but never from the perspective of a mom who could be in a carpool pickup with my kids. I was torn between sympathy and exasperation as Hardin descended into drug use and bad decision making. But I learned a lot about the “system” and frankly I’m amazed anyone can get out of it! Once you’re in prison, jail, or have gone into drug abuse programs it’s like a gauntlet of rules, appointments, and catch-22s. How do you get a job with a record? How do you stay clean when drugs are rampant in jail? How can you pay for anything if you can’t get welfare for having a prior drug record? The people that come out of this have my applause, no my standing ovation. Hardin was lucky enough to be a very skilled writer and she since has had a lot of success as a ghost writer and co author. She’s also worked very hard for it all. I found the story riveting and it opened my eyes and even tampered down some judgement I probably had around drug use. In all a very worthy read to add to your list, especially if you enjoy memoirs about strong women.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and Lara Love Hardin for this ARC.

I have so many thoughts on our justice system. Being from California I have seen first hand how bad it is. She made the most of it and her story is very inspiring.

I am not, in any way, excusing her behavior. What she did was terrible; however, she did her time and took responsibility for her actions.

I encourage everyone to pick up this book, read it, pass it on to someone else and then take action. Take action in justice reform. We badly need it.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Rating a memoir is hard. How do you judge someone's life experience?

Mary Love Hardin describes her life as a recovered addict when she's arrested, and later found guilty, of fraud, her time in jail, and once she was out of jail. It's important to know Mary Love Hardin is a well-educated, upper middleclass white cis woman. Hardin also talks briefly on the impact her actions had on her children while she was incarcerated.

I'm not going to argue that Hardin is a gifted writer. Her story is easy to read and well written. I felt that Hardin was just skimming the surface of her experience for this memoir. I felt myself wanting to know more about those inside her cell block when she talked about her time in jail, than Hardin. The stories of these women, mostly women of color, were more compelling. Hardin's work as a ghost writer was also interesting, but she chose to focus primarily on two Black men she worked with.

My problem with this memoir stems, not only from wanting more from Hardin herself, but from what feels like exploitation for personal gain of the people of color she writes about. Will the people she talks about in her book also be compensated for their stories? I doubt it. Their stories make up as much the story as Hardin's. It just gives me bad vibes. I can be completely off-base, but those my feelings.

Thank you to Simon Books and Netgalley for an advanced copy.

I love a good memoir and this one is outstanding. This amazing memoir grabbed me from the first chapter and didn’t let go. When an author is able to tell their life story this perfectly, they deserve an award. Thanks to Lara Love Hardin, I’ve had a glimpse of a life different from mine that leaves me feeling more compassion for people who end up in bad situations. This memoir will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and Net Galley for providing me with an advance copy of this astonishing autobiography written by a successful literary agent and writer who had been convicted of dozens of felonies for funding her drug habit through theft and fraud. Love’s story opens with her family taking a stay vacation at a local beach hotel using a credit card Love boosted from a mother she knew from the Montessori school that her children had attended years before. Love stole to support a drug habit that had begun when she was in college. Although she had told her first husband that she had a “problem” with Vicodin, three pills a day had escalated to 60 at the time of the couple’s divorce. Infidelity caused a 28-year-old Love to pack up her two toddlers and a baby and move out, but on weekends, when her boys were with their father, Love “went out on the town.”

Love blames childhood trauma that she vaguely addresses — a father she didn’t know and a mother who was absent — for fueling her addiction (she has other siblings with mental health and addiction issues). She began writing short stories in high school, where she received some recognition, and she explains that she “needed every single person I met to like me, and if I could make them love and need me, even better.” She was the first person in her family to attend college, majoring in creative writing at UC Santa Cruz, but she turned to sex and then opiates when she needed to “outrun herself.”

Love had been in recovery for 6 years before the relapse that sent her to prison. She had voluntarily gone into recovery and met D.J., the man who would become her second husband and father to her fourth son, Kaden, who introduced her to heroin. D.J., a mortgage broker in recovery to avoid a jail sentence for multiple DUIs, was charming, whisking Love on “magical” weekends, and Love envisioned that she was going to be the “suburban soccer mom” that she had wanted to be. The couple bought a house in Silicon Valley and operated a thriving pet cemetery business. But, when Kaden was 2 months old, D.J. returned to rehab, and Love began taking pills in secret, using her dog’s urine to pass the drug tests that D.J. ironically demanded.

Love and D.J. were arrested for identity theft in their two-story house on a cul-de-sac, and Kaden was taken away by Child Protective Services. Love considers addiction “an extreme form of self-obsession” and she reflects that she “would throw [herself] in front of a bus to save each of my boys. I would sacrifice my life for theirs, but I couldn’t stop using drugs for them. I don’t know how to reconcile those two truths.” The couple accepted a plea deal that required them to plead guilty to thirty-two felonies, to serve one year in jail and to make restitution to their neighbors of $9,000 (although Love says that together they stole less than a thousand dollars).

Love details how she survived and ultimately thrived in jail despite the outrage of angry neighbors and the efforts of her ex-husband’s wife to thwart Love’s ability ti be reunited with her children. Although drugs were rampant, she avoided them. The opiates that she had taken to avoid pain had also deprived her of the ability to write. But, in jail, she deployed her “mother energy” to listen to other inmates and she honed her writing talents by ghostwriting legal letters, love letters, and poems for other inmates. After she is released without a home or transportation or a means of support, she confronts the formidable task of trying to navigate an unforgiving probation system.

This is a harrowing tale, particularly because we do not envision that criminals and addicts live on an upscale cul-de-sac or rifle throw the purses left unattended in the pre-school parking lot. Love lightens her story with gallows humor. Discussing her drug fueled weight loss, she says, “I finally found the perfect diet to lose the extra baby weight, but an unfortunate side effect of the addiction diet is there’s no on left in your life to admire your new physique. Plus, it turns your skin gray.” Addressing the slip on sandals that she is given when she is taken to jail, she quips, “I have definitely deprioritized mani-pedis during my criminal phase. Who knew jail would be open toe?” Ultimately, Love finds redemption, piecing her life back together and becoming a publishing luminary.

Fascinating book. Mama Love was very interesting and thought provoking. A lady is college educated and doing well in her world. But, financial woes stared and she completely has a mental character crash. She goes from being a well respected lady and seemingly happy to a convicted felon for very stupid crimes, mail box theft for to take someone's identity, neighbors. Proceeds to find it works well and continues for a period of time. Then drugs enter her life, she is the mom of three boys. More felonies and next thing she knows she is in a legal mess.
She goes to jail and makes a remarkable turnaround and changes her life.
Great example how you can go from being a decent person to a criminal if your priorities are out of whack.

Wow. I loved this memoir and read it in 24 hours. Lara is an incredible writer and story teller. Her story of being a soccer mom to heroin addict/thief who ends up in jail is heartbreakingly sad. It's so devastating to read about the process of incarceration and working to get back on track in a system that sets you up for failure. I was rooting for Mama Love throughout the entire book and I am sure you will too.

Thank you to Netgalley & Simon & Schuster for the advanced reader copy.

This was such a fascinating memoir.

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.

I always love a good comeback story and really, this is a tale of overcoming odds and flourishing. I will say however that her privilege did play a big part in this. She did acknowledge it but at times, as a black woman i found myself unable to...relate because i kept thinking..what if this had been me? or someone who looked like me?

It does not negate her experience or like I said, all that she overcame. I would recommend.

Thank you to netgalley for the ARC. all opinions are my own

I've read many memoirs about addicts and people who have gone to prison, but none of them touched me the way this memoir did. This is beautifully written, tugging at all of the heart strings and describing things so well you feel like you are there with Lara. She's able to make you understand why a "normal" every day person would get hooked on drugs and why it would be so hard to just walk away from them. Lara also tackles the injustice most inmates are faced with once released, and it got me angry and also so proud of her when she did succeed! I loved every moment of this book, I'm so glad I was able to read it on NetGalley as an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the digital ARC. This review is my own opinion. Mama Love seems to have written this book from the heart. She was addicted to opiates and lost part of her life to them. In reading this book I felt the truth in it. She hurt herself, her children, her friends and her neighbors. People may read this book and think that could never happen to them or their loved ones. I have lived on the outskirts of this world and I have seen people being taken by drugs and sincerely not be able to think past their next dose. The saying "but for the grace of God, go I" should be forefront in everyones mind when they read this book. Mama Love should be proud of getting out of that life. The book was a hard look at addiction, California jails and "drug court." To Mama Love I say there will always be haters--don't let it drag you back down.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is an honest and unflinching memoir about a woman who appeared to be living a typical suburban mom life but was really living on the edge, addicted to drugs and stealing from neighbors to support her habit. She chronicles her time in jail and after, as she worked tirelessly to rebuild her life and regain custody of her son.

I really appreciated her honesty about the roadblocks she encountered as she reentered life after incarceration. I am so grateful to authors like @laralovehardin and @keriblakinger for sharing their experiences and shining a light on all the ways the judicial system operates to keep people stuck inside.

Once an affluent suburban soccer mom, Lara (aka Mama Love) was convicted of 32 felonies for stealing credit cards to fund her opioid addiction. She recounts her harrowing time in prison and the incredible second chance at life she reclaimed upon her release. With wit and tenderness, Mama Love explores themes of shame and forgiveness, as well as a commentary on the criminal legal system. You will root for Mama Love as she becomes a best-selling author/ghostwriter and proves that stories have the power to heal and that we are all more than our worst mistake.

READ THIS IF:
You read The Sun Does Shine (Lara was a co-writer with Anthony Ray Hinton)
You believe we’re more than the worst thing we’ve ever done
Getting a window into a women’s prison intrigues you

Wow! What a stunning, emotional, and raw memoir. This tugged at my mama heart in so many ways. Brutal honesty and true vulnerability as she shares a story of healing & overcoming. Definitely recommend and will not forget this one!

Super compelling, fast and interesting read! I heard about this book on the podcast Sarah's Bookshelves, and am glad I was able to get to be an early reader. I'll definitely recommend it to people when it comes out!

I could just not get into this book at all. While I felt some sympathy, I just really couldn't understand how this intelligent woman ended up in this situation. I'm sure it is an uplifting story eventually, but I just didn't care enough to go further. DNF at 25%

The Many Lives of Mama Love was such an emotional read. As a mother myself I felt for Lara and am so proud of how she turned her life around and did "the next right thing" in order to get her son back. I also thought she did a great job of showing how broken the system is and how difficult life after prison can be for anyone, let alone a single mother. This was an inspiring and reflective read! I am interested in reading other books she helped write.