Will I love The Many Lives of Mama Love?

I love this book because it reminded me that we are more than our worst mistake.

Good, smart people do bad, dumb things—and sometimes end up in prison. I heard stories like this every day when I ran a program for formerly incarcerated students on my college campus, but never told as eloquently as the one Love Hardin writes.

Her story is raw, and her transformation feels earned rather than tidy. Plus, she offers an important insider's view of the criminal justice system, one that left me fired up about how the system could do better.

I returned to Love… show more.

This book is a freight train, and from the very first page I was grateful to be along for the ride. Lara writes so vulnerably about the challenges of being a mom of four, both as a pre-prison thief/addict and then after as a post-prison felon/ghost writer/author/literary agent. It didn't feel like I was reading, instead it felt like I was having an incredible conversation with a close friend. Typically I read a book over a span of a weeks, a little every night. But I tore through The Many Lives of Mama Love in two sittings, desperate to see… show more.