The Many Loves of Mama Love
author: Lara Love Hardin
publisher: Simon and Schuster
publish date: August 1. 2023
*I received an electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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.
