Search results for ""Author Lara Love Hardin""

Once you start reading, be prepared, because you won''t want to stop. -Oprah WinfreyOPRAH''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 he

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'Lara Love Hardin shares compelling and important truths in her beautifully told personal story.' PIPER KERMAN, author of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Orange is the New Black'Thrilling, funny, heartbreaking and moving. I'll return to this book when I need to be reminded of the power of the human spirit.' DAVID SHEFF, author of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Boy'Compelling and timely' BRYAN STEVENSON, author of the New York Times bestseller Just MercyThe Neighbour From Hell is the astonishing tale of Lara's descent from middle class soccer mum with an enviable lifestyle, beautiful home and family to an opiate addict and identity thief. Convicted of 32 felonies, her children are taken away and she is placed in a local jail.In this strange and frightening new world, she has to get grips with life behind bars. Lara becomes known in prison as Mama Love. She helps the women around her get to grips with their own troubles, writes letters for them, acts as an advocate, and comforts them in their darkest moments. Soon she climbs the jailhouse social ladder to become 'the shot caller' showing that jailhouse politics and PTA politics are not that different.Through her incarceration, Lara reveals a world where makeshift furniture is made from tampon boxes and snicker bars are currency, a world of brutal corruption and abuse, and of surprising humanity and tenderness.Her story gives us a rare glimpse into the lives of the women in jail she spent time with and the very real challenges they, and she, faced trying to make it out of prison, regain custody of their children and start life afresh.

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'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'Lara Love Hardin shares compelling and important truths in her beautifully told personal story.' PIPER KERMAN, author of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Orange is the New Black'Thrilling, funny, heart-breaking and moving. I'll return to this book when I need to be reminded of the power of the human spirit.' DAVID SHEFF, author of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Boy'Hardin is an aptly named genius with a heart of gold' ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU'A book to intrigue, enchant, instruct, entertain and inspire' GABOR MATÉ M.D., author of the New York Times bestseller The Myth of Normal'A hilarious and heart-breaking confession that will not let you go until it is done - and then it will haunt you.' LORI GOTTLIEB, author of the New York Times Bestseller, Maybe You Should Talk to SomeoneReading was her first addiction; but then came opiates. And so, despite the appearances of a perfect picket fence life, Lara steals credit cards and goes through people's mail, raiding identities to sustain her addiction until eventually she finds herself in a Californian prison.She has to get to grip quickly with life behind bars. She doesn't know the street world of Santa Cruz so isn't sure who to be afraid of, defer to, or lord above - but she does know how to pretend. Within weeks, she understands every gang and all the prison slang, and is doling out advice and writing letters for the other girls in prison. She finds she has a talent for writing under the guise of others, for absolute empathy with them. Before long she's earned herself a nickname: 'Mama Love'.The Many Lives of Mama Love is a beautiful, page-turning memoir about a powerful, redemptive journey with a surprising final act. It's about reaching rock bottom and clambering back up; about healing, shame and self-forgiveness, and about writing yourself a new path, with a different destiny.

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