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A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing (Oprahs Book Club 2.0)
by Lara Love Hardin
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.
"A courageous and inspiring memoir." —Kirkus Reviews
"Grips you as suddenly as any psychological thriller… Readers will experience the lows and highs of addiction, incarceration and rehabilitation as Love Hardin assembles the pieces of her shattered life into something beautiful again in this inspiring chronicle." —BookPage
"Heartfelt, humor-tinged prose…The Many Lives of Mama Love contains notes of Wild, Orange is the New Black, and Catch me if you Can." —The New York Times
"A hilarious and heartbreaking confession that will not let you go until it is done—and then it will haunt you. It will give you hope in what is possible for each of us if we allow others—and ourselves—to move beyond our shame, find redemption, and write a new, more inspiring story of our lives." —Lori Gottlieb, author of the New York Times bestseller, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
"Laced with penetrating wit, written with unsparing honesty and manifesting irrepressible resilience, The Many Lives of Mama Love is a book to intrigue, enchant, instruct, entertain and inspire readers of all ages and backgrounds. It speaks to our common human experience of suffering and the healing that can follow." —Gabor Maté M.D., author of the New York Times bestseller, The Myth of Normal
This information about The Many Lives of Mama Love (Oprah's Book Club) was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lara Love Hardin is a literary agent, author, and president of True Literary. Prior to founding True Literary, she was the co-CEO of Idea Architects. She has an MFA in creative writing and is a five-time New York Times bestselling collaborative writer, including the #1 bestseller Designing Your Life and the 2018 Oprah's Book Club pick The Sun Does Shine, which she coauthored with Anthony Ray Hinton. She lives in La Selva Beach, California.
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