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!

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a memoir about Lara Love Hardin and tells the story about how she went from being a Silicon Valley mom in a five-bedroom home living a blissful suburban life with her family to becoming addicted to substances that led her to committing acts of theft and fraud. More than anything this is a memoir about redemption and reclamation after the mistakes Lara makes land her in prison and eventually back into the community where she has to navigate life after incarceration and the pressures of probation.

I enjoyed the voice of this memoir. Lara is an editor, author, and comedian and her talent really shines through even as she shares the harrowing and sad details of her journey to and through the prison system. I enjoyed reading the stories of the friendships she ends up making with the women in the local prison; the same women who gave her the nickname Mama Love.

Mama Love uses her talents as a writer to write a short story about the women in her block and via storytelling she begins to help others heal- women who have never seen their stories reflected on the page. Through her gift as a writer and as an empath, Mama Love builds bonds with these women and is able to teach them purpose through her own pain. Lara is so deeply vulnerable and honest in this memoir and shares how not being able to speak the language of grief, loss, or emotions stunted her healing journey. In this memoir she shows us how she reclaimed her own story and her journey back to self and back to her boys.

Thank you so much to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!

Whew, this is an intense, attention-grabbing memoir. I read it in a single day. Hardin pulls no punches as she vividly lays out her journey with drugs and how it led to her time in jail, and then details her fervent, often frustrating struggle to stay straight, regain custody of her children, and build a career. If you like candid memoirs, you’ll enjoy this ride.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book.

I immediately got into this book and couldn't really stop reading. It's so very well written, very engrossing and just so moving. Primarily though, it's about how we, as a society, dehumanize those who have made mistakes and how we're not willing to see the difference between those who are sorry for their crime and those who are not. I also don't know how it works in other countries, but judging by this book and some others I've read in the past, it sure looks like in the US, the system is simply designed to keep a person in, once they so much as spend a day inside.

Despite that, this book made me genuinely happy - for the author, and the way things turned out for her. It's a sad story, but not a sad book - and it has a happy ending (I'm not spoiling, okay? The author clearly wrote it, so she's fine!)

There is no way you'll be reading this book and not rooting for Mama Love. I dare you. I fell in love with her within the very first pages.

Oh, and unrelated - but I just wanted to say, how funny it is to find out you've read quite a few of the books co-authored by a person and you never knew. Loved them as well. Hilarious.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.