I had not heard of this author before nor was I familiar with her story but thought I would take a chance on it. I am glad that I did as her life is quite astonishing. To go from a housewife and mother to the depth of addiction so dark and deep that she was repeatedly imprisoned for multiple crimes to becoming a ghostwriter and working with the likes of Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama is an extreme life that very few can claim. She was very frank about how badly she acted and seemed sincere about her change and the betterment of her life. You feel for her and root for her. This is definitely a read I won't soon forget. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I don’t like to give ratings to memoirs because everyone has a story and it takes a lot of vulnerability to share. I respect everyone who takes the time to write their personal story down no matter if I like it or not. Every now and then I will make an exception on giving out a rating…The Many Lives of Mama Love gets all the stars. Author Lara Love Hardin writes her powerful story about being a PTA mom to battling a drug addiction and ultimately jail time. I admired Lara’s dedication to her boys and her recovery to be the best parent she could be after being released from jail. At first I didn’t know she co-authored The Sun Doesn’t Shine, which is another fantastic memoir, but as I read about it in her own memoir, I was so happy for her and cheered her along her redemptive healing journey!

“Reading was my first addiction.” Same, girl. Same.

“How we take care of broken people matters. Fundamentally, I believe, it determines our own humanity.”

“Real power is about using your power to shine a light on other people so they can find their own power.”

Woah. I am in awe of Lara Love Hardin and how raw and real she is in this book. I must admit I have always judged a woman who “chooses” drugs over her children. How could you?! But I swear this book has changed how I see things I didn’t really understand. And that, guys, is one of the powers of reading. So thank you for opening my eyes to this challenge that so many face and for helping me to understand something that is foreign to me.

I am beyond impressed at her insight into her illness and her ability to admit to, own, and ultimately redeem herself from her mistakes. We should all be as honest with ourselves. We need to judge less and forgive more. This book should be required reading so that anyone that may feel hopeless in their addictions or situation can see that they, too, can change!

Thank you @SimonBooks #SimonBooksBuddy for the free book.

At the beginning of this story, the author is recounting getting arrested and having her young child taken from her because she can't do anything but prioritize her addiction. It has lead to lying, stealing and almost hitting rock bottom. This is a shocking scene and leads to her ultimate incarceration. I've read other stories of addiction and also incarceration and how this system is built to perpetuate itself but none as compulsively readable. Even though I shudder to think that I would ever do any of the acts that put Love in jail in the first place, I could empathize with her struggles. I felt for the way that she was her harshest judge and jury. I'm glad that she was able to pull herself out of the system (no spoiler here since she's published her life story) and I look forward to her next book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in return for my honest (albeit late) review.

The author writes about her arrest and subsequent year in jail for identity theft, her struggle to kick her heroin addiction, and the years it took to rebuild her life and her self worth.
I’m usually a big fan of memoirs about basket cases who turn their lives around and have read some great ones. This one, though, was just pretty good. It seemed to go on forever, almost like I was reading her story in real time.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonandschuster for this #arc of #themanylivesofmamalove in exchange for an honest review.

✨Book review✨
📚The many lives of mama love - @laralovehardin
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 / 5

It is not very often that I am super inter memoirs, but this one hooked me. The whole time I was reading it gave me orange is the new black vibes. It was honest & real, and that is all you can really ask for a book about someone's life. We saw many sides to mama love, but the was she recreated her life was amazing.

I definitely recommend reading this book!!

Thank you @simonbooks & @netgalley for a copy of this book in return for my honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir, and I also have some thoughts.

The story begins with a little background of Lara's childhood, and then we arrive pretty quickly at the moment she's arrested. Her life is essentially childhood, blank spot, addict. Later, we'll learn that she was on the PTA, chaired a bunch of committees, etc. I would've enjoyed getting the first marriage, her first children, and her life more continuously, but it's not my memoir :)

Some of the story is a bit self-aggrandizing and a struggle to believe. However, if I'd waited as long as she did to tell her story (I'd likely have forgotten most of it in that amount of time), and I was going to fully bare my many transgressions, probably I'd also give myself a little leeway too.

Ultimately, this was a brave story, and I really admire Lara for sharing her life experiences so openly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this memoir in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Many Lives of Mama Love taught me more about the mindset of an addict. It is crazy to see how one part of Lara's brain knew she needed to stop but she was helpless to actually do it until the possibility of losing her child motivated her. I also appreciated learning the wacky way our penal system expects their prisoners to jump thru unreasonable hoops. This seems like something that could be fixed if people started working together. I would have appreciated more detail about her day to day life behind bars. At the same time, I appreciated seeing all the work she did to get her life back on track. This book should be required reading in high school. People need to see there are consequences to their actions so choose wisely.

The Many Lives of Mama Love - the PG-13 Version of Orange is the New Black.

A memoir of motherhood, addiction, incarceration, and growth.

Pros of this book: This book is very well-written. I enjoyed reading Lara Love Hardin's story and I completely understand and support her writing a memoir about her life. Everyone needs the space and support to share their story freely and without judgment.

Cons of this book: White Privilege

After finishing this book, I read a few recent author interviews and found out that she's living her very best life - she's driving a Tesla and is the owner of a successful publishing company now. I am very happy for her. She has worked hard on herself and in her career and fought for the life that she wants.

But the whole time I was reading, the only thing I could think of was the thousands and thousands of people of color currently serving time in prison all over the country for her exact same crimes (or maybe even just one of them!) but they are given mandatory sentences of anywhere from 10-30 years or for life.

The author plead guilty to 32 counts - some of them she admitted were completely false but she still had to claim them to make the plea deal - but she does admit her guilt for drug possession, the endangerment of her child, and the identity theft of several of her neighbors. Despite all of that, she was sentenced to a year in prison and then was released after 10 months. In my opinion, serving less than a year in prison does not fit all of the crimes she committed.

Most people of color don't have the privileges or resources to get out of prison after serving time and be able to curate a new life path for themselves where they end up driving a Tesla and working as the CEO of a company. And the reason for that is not because of their education level, work ethic, or drive to succeed. It's only because of the color of their skin.

I know that people will probably read this and say, "Don't make this a race issue!" But when it comes to mass incarceration, race IS the issue. I just wanted to give the reader some background on the current reality of the HORRIFIC disparities between white people and people of color when it comes to drug charges and imprisonment in America.

In conclusion: While this book was very good, I just think it felt a bit out of touch for me. It honestly reminded me of when Kim Kardashian was crying over her lost diamond earring on her tropical vacation and her sister was like, "Kim, there are people that are dying."

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and the author for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest feedback!

(𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 @𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯.𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰 @𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 #𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬.) I’m just not a huge nonfiction reader, but the nonfiction I like most consistently are memoirs. 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗬 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗔𝗠𝗔 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 by Lara Love Hardin has definitely solidified that trend. In fact, so far it’s my favorite memoir of the year and the only one I’ve given five stars. There’s something about this book that is everything: sad, painful, tragic, heartfelt, uplifting, wise, redemptive, joyful, and healing. All the feelings!⁣
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From the onset of the book we know the author found herself in the unenviable position of being in jail both on drug and many other felony charges. This is the story of how she got there, the devastation it brought to her sons, and how hard she battled for a different life. At times it was horrifying, but at others inspiring. Hardin's memoir brimmed with not only exhaustion and defeat, but also with hope and determination. “𝘔𝘢𝘮𝘢 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦,” as she came to be known in jail, truly has lived many lives and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her personal account of them all in this honest, cautionary memoir. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin.

Lara Love Hardin has been coined The Neighbor From Hell in the past. After struggling with heroine addiction while raising kids in an affluent neighborhood, everything came crashing down on her when she was finally arrested, lost her children, and had to take serious stock of her life while in jail. Her story is one of extreme loss, grief, anger, frustration, but also of hope, dignity, recovery, and redemption.

I enjoyed this story, however, sometimes I think Hardin was a bit blind to her privilege. She talks a lot about how she was stereotyped as a felon in the writing world after her conviction, but I can't help but think how being a white, blond woman helped her achieve what SO many drug addicted felons could never, even if they had the same qualifications. However, I still appreciated her blunt and open descriptions of the horrors that would be dealing with addictions and losing so much.

Lara’s story drew me in from the first page. Her memoir shows behind the scenes of drug addiction, jail and learning how to navigate the post incarceration world. The story reads like a novel and she is a great writer making you feel like you are right there with her going through this.

Speaks a lot about how difficult it is to come back from being incarcerated even when you do not have a true life sentence, you will never be totally free.

It is amazing how much she has overcome and persevered to be where she is today.

The Many Lives of Mama Love really rocked me to my core. With many loved ones that struggle with addiction it was eye opening to see life from the eyes of the addict and not the loved one so to say. It was gripping and beautifully written, as well as raw and honest. I really enjoyed Mama Loves story.

I couldn’t put this book down! The author really captures your attention and shines the light on America’s correctional institutions and how broken they are! I commend her courage to love her life and share it with others!

So good! I love books like this, that take a super flawed person that so many would judge and shows us how they’re human and deserve compassion. Beautiful!!

This is an excellent memoir detailing one woman's life path from PTA mom to drug addict, convicted felon, ghostwriter and eventually, best-selling author. Laura Love Hardin doesn't hold much back in this story of her life. She doesn't try to sugarcoat anything, make excuses for her behavior, or fail to take responsibility for the choices she's made in life, and I respect that.

That said, as the child of a parent with addiction issues, I couldn't help but feel anger towards Laura at certain points throughout the book. To say she's not going to mess up, she's not going to do anything to risk her chances of regaining custody of her youngest son again, and then to just lie back and let her husband inject heroin into her veins at the first opportunity had me fuming. Even though I understand that addiction is a disease, and I realize that these choices feel out of the addict's control, having lived through so much trauma that affects me still as an adult, I'd be lying if I said reading parts of this book didn't make me angry. I recognize that it's my personal experience that causes me to react this way, whether right or wrong.

However, I also felt a great deal of sympathy for Laura at later points in her life. What she went through when being released from jail was so challenging. To be let out without a home, car, job, or any financial stability or support system is shocking to me. We wonder why the recidivism rate is so high, but yet our system doesn't support people trying to make the transition from jail or prison back to civilian life. Laura made it through, but I can understand why so many people end up back in jail.

Those parts of the book detailing her experiences after getting out of jail were the most eye-opening to me. I learned a lot about the system that I never knew. Also, I was so angry when her husband, who had continued abusing drugs and was making no effort to change in order to get their son back, got off easier than Laura did in the end. That's absurd to me and not the way things should go.

Anyway, I don't want to give away too much of the book, but I was really blown away by the changes Laura made in her life and where she is now versus where she was at her lowest point. This book will show you how someone can literally go from being a convicted felon and heroin addict to a best-selling author that has spent time with people like the Dalai Lama and Oprah. It's really quite an incredible story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Shuster for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is one of my favorite memoirs I've read. It's raw, real and poignant. Lara is a gifted writer who does a wonderful job of bringing readers into her world and her mindset. This is a book I would reccomend to anyone. Special Thank You to Lara Love Hardin, Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

Such an interesting approach to a memoir. Reminds me of Jeanette McCurdy's book - humor, shame, and growth wrapped into one.

Wow. I think this is a book that every mother, possibly every woman should read. Lara Love Hardin's story of addiction and redemption has so many important lessons I think we all need to learn. Using drugs (or alcohol) as a way to escape the pain and problems of every day life, the many issues with our justice system and the cycle of reincarceration, the difficulties felons have in starting their lives over if they can break their previous negative cycles... These are all addressed. I have never been a drug addict, I have never stolen other's identities, I have never been incarcerated, but I connected with Love Hardin so many times on many different levels. It is hard not to compare this book to High Achiever by Tiffany Jenkins - both great and powerful books but I preferred this one as I got much more of the back story and much more of what happened after her sentence. Read this as a cautionary tale, but also as inspiration that it is never too late to turn your life around and be the person you really want to be, no matter your circumstance.

I was surprised by how much of an impact this book had on me. Lara's writing is easy reading while still delivering impactful messages about addiction, our broken prison system, and the effects of incarceration on families. It dragged a little in the beginning for me, but once I was half way through I couldn't put it down.