The Many Lives of Mama Love (Oprah's Book Club)
A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
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4.4 • 558 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Once you start reading, be prepared, because you won’t want to stop.” —Oprah Winfrey
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • 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 door of 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 finds 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 learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder and acquires the nickname “Mama Love,” 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, and prove to herself that she is more good than bad, among other essential lessons.
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
One woman refuses to let her greatest mistake define her in this stunning memoir from author and literary agent Lara Love Hardin. As a child, Hardin used books as an escape from her tumultuous family life, but as she got older, she turned to more risky avenues like sex and drugs, eventually becoming a drug-addicted suburban mother. Hardin’s balancing act all came crashing down the day she was arrested for over 30 counts of identity theft. From the surreal opening of this candid tale, we were utterly astonished by Hardin’s path from stealing her neighbor’s credit card to score drugs to becoming a celebrated writer. And we were fascinated to read about how much she learned from self-help books while serving time in prison (where she earned the nickname “Mama Love”). Dark, funny, and inspirational, The Many Lives of Mama Love proves that truth can be so much stranger than fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A suburban mom weathers addiction, jail, and parole in this roller-coaster debut memoir. Hardin's account opens in 2008 as she and her then-husband smoke heroin beside their three-year-old son, Kaden, in a hotel room paid for with a stolen credit card. Arrested and sentenced to a year in county jail in Santa Cruz, Calif., Hardin became mother hen to the women of cellblock G, dispensing advice and drugs and polishing her literary chops by ghostwriting fellow inmates' pleas to the authorities. The real struggle began when she was released in 2009 and struggled to get hired due to her criminal record, kick out her still-using husband, and regain custody of Kaden. Eventually, Hardin found employment at a literary agency; helped write bestsellers, including 2016's Designing Your Life; and obtained audiences with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Oprah. Hardin mixes despair and comedy in her evocative prose: "I carefully pick through the bottom-of-purse debris until I find some small brown chips.... I don't know if I'm smoking heroin or food crumbs or lint, but I feel the anxiety slowly leave my chest." This redemption story feels well earned.
Customer Reviews
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Gives new meaning to the word honesty.
Heart felt and real
Gives you the perspective on life that you need
Phenomenal!
As a psychiatrist, this book described 75% of my patients and I highly recommend it. It shows ups and downs, grit, determination and gratitude. I cried and laughed; my children are avid readers and they loved the book!
K. Fletcher, DNP