The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin

Written By: Lara Love Hardin

Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, True Crime, Memoir

Synopsis:

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 jail is a class system with a power structure 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. She must learn 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.

Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages

Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Memoir or Autobiography (2023), Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Nominee (2023)

Goodreads Rating: 4.47

*This book is pre-loved, but has been carefully looked through to ensure it is not missing any pages and is in good condition. All visible flaws have been documented in the product photos.