The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

Laura Love Hardin, aka Mama Love, has experienced many lives and is still living all of them. Fortunately for readers, one of her lives includes sharing what she has learned along the way and writing incredible stories. As an accomplished ghost writer she writes true stories, and the truest of all is this memoir, her own story. It takes us from a troubled youth through years of horrifying addiction, living as “the neighbor from hell,” to imprisonment and recovery and finally finding, in the words of Oprah, the person she is supposed to be. Taking the journey with her is engrossing and ultimately inspirational and uplifting. Beautifully written, honest, and a compelling read. 6 stars!

The Many Lives of Mama Loveby Lara Love HardinThe Many Lives of Mama Love is an eye-opening, heart-wrenching memoir. Lara Love Hardin is the typical suburban mother. She has a good job, a beautiful house and a growing family. Then one day, she pops a pill and can’t stop. Lara’s craving for drugs leads her to steal credit cards out of her neighbors’ mailboxes to help fund her addiction. Watching this woman sacrifice herself, her life and her kids for drugs just proves how addiction possesses an individual. Addicted to heroin and opiates Lara Love Hardin cannot beat the vicious dependency cycle until she gets charged with 32 felonies.As a mother of three boys, I found parts of this book unfathomable and infuriating. The injustice Lara endured compared to her husband was unbelievable. Her journey to gain her life back and fight for redemption is inspiring. This book is a brilliant story of addiction, recovery and forgiveness. If you want a memoir to challenge your comfort zone and evoke your emotions this book is for you.

I enjoyed reading this memoir of a woman who chose to make her mistakes her triumphs. It was educational to find out how much our criminal justice system needs to do better, so every prison sentence isn’t a life sentence burdened by impossible financial and logistical dilemas. Her story illustrates that all people deserve another chance to create a beautiful life.

I am so glad she has told her story. Wow.In many ways, it has similarities to Orange is the New Black, which was a much better book than it was a TV show. The description of life behind the bars, and the dynamics of the women she meets while incarcerated were very similar.There are several times in the story when you just want to shake her for her dumb decisions, but there are also plenty of times when you are outraged by how ridiculous the criminal system can be. It seems like it’s almost designed to make people fail.This is a great book for anyone who is serving time or has been released, or has tried to escape a shady past and live as a good person. She has come a long way!This is a quick easy read and definitely worth it! Now I want to read some of the books that she has edited and cowritten.

Hardin is a fantastic storyteller.While there are many stories written on this topic she engages with her intimacy.Also, I think it shines a light on the terrible injustice in our judicial system. A great read for many other reasons and so worth the read.

By telling you all that I have 37 years clean in recovery, I am somewhat blowing my anonymity. I hope readers understand that Lara was not a bad person, she was a sick person. I am a retired A&D counselor who spent many days across the desk from people on probation, who had stories like hers: " I don't have a car, a job, a place to stay, and I don't have a phone either. At the exact time I've hit rock bottom, the justice system says it's mandatory that I stay clean." People...this is the exact time addicts want to get high, and who can blame them?! Lara's strength was tested so many times, as she navigated rudderless through post incarceration. Talk about being able to juggle! Then someone would toss in another ball to juggle..."here, catch this!" Addicts in early recovery are fearful, because they don't know how to have a plan and goals. They are wrong. Lara had those plans and goals in her active addiction, she just needed to flip the switch, and see it from a different perspective. Go to great lengths no matter what...in a good way. Some people may wander why recovering addicts want to dig into, or remember their ugly horrible pasts. Even the "normal people" reading this book, understand that if we forget the past, we could be destined to repeat it. Be vigilant and cautious, grateful that you don't have to repeat those things. This is non fiction, but it's written like a great suspense novel. I was expecting more about Lara, not what she's been through and done. Then BAM, the last third of the book had me copying and saving passages on my kindle, as she dug deeper about forgiveness (mostly forgiving herself) self-worth, and the process of recovery. As Oprah would say, "AHA moments." The yin and the yang people: how would you know joy, if you haven't experienced sorrow? How would you experience true happiness (you can't buy it) if you haven't been to the depths of sadness and chaos? How would we know what's right, if we hadn't done or been wrong. Lara, thank you so much for allowing us on your journey. I also highly recommend "The Sun Does Shine." There is hope for the hopeless, but it takes work. She's doing the work.

Could not stop reading this book. It made me anxious wondering what was going to happen to Lara next and what choices (good or bad) she would make.

I read the many lives of mama love in three days. Couldn’t put it down. The author is honest, funny soulful, and just lays it out for us all this is a book of Hope and despair, misery and joy, and captivity and freedom.

When this book was finished I missed reading it and needed a day to breathe. It leaves an imprint on you.

Lara opened up with her struggles with addiction and the real pain and heartache it caused to her family and herself, she tells it like your there sitting beside her in the court room, you can feel the deep pain of her wanting to give up when she writes about wrapping sheets around her neck, Thank goodness she fell asleep and didn’t see it through.The struggles of one step forwards and two step back for her shows how that inner strength within her made her fight her way through those dark moments and the advice from books she read at the right time helped her gain strength within to find herself again.This book, her story is going to be one of those books that will do the same for others that the books she read did for her.

Thank you Mama Love for this book. It reached my heart and strengthens me to follow my path. Your honesty and vulnerability is really a gift to us readers 🩷

If you were to dig deep inside yourself to bring out all the worst you ever did, and put it on paper and release it to the world, well, that is what Lara bravely does with this book.It is a story of healing through writing, it is brave, harrowing, and very real. I think any reader will find something to relate to here, as Lara’s story unfolds from impossible to hopeful. A story that will touch your heart, definitely worth the read.