Forgive me if I quickly blaze through my next few reviews. I’ve been moving lately and life has been so chaotic. I find myself at the final hour trying to finish my books and reviews for my reading challenge this year. I’m going to make it, but my reviews might not be quite as well-thought-out as I usually attempt.

For my Oprah’s Book club selection, I chose this one. It’s a very highly-rated memoir about a woman who destroyed her soccer mom existence with a drug habit that led her to financial ruin and then to massive identify theft out of desperation to maintain the status quo. The goodreads synopsis claims this book “recounts her slide” but it’s really more of the upward climb back up that’s the focus of the memoir. We start at the very bottom, the lowest of the low, in which Love is attempting to sign herself into a hotel with a neighbor’s stolen credit card only to have the law come calling not too much later. Sure, she looks back a bit into the “how did I get here” realm, but it’s really very simple. It’s the tale as old as time. What truly matters is how she left that behind and created a future for herself that a ridiculously low number of people are able to obtain.

I found it difficult to get into this one because of the initial frustration. It’s difficult having a birds-eye view into someone destroying their own life and that of their children. You will not like Lara in the beginning chapters, but please stick with it. If anything, this book draws some striking and important attention onto the way our society is not just hesitant to give second chances to people who’ve made mistakes but downright campaigns against them and does everything in its power to ensure they will never again be able to lead a normal lives. You can do your time, but you’ll never be free of the stigma. This book also highlights the importance of finding those people in your life willing to stick their necks out for you, even through a faith that may be tenuous at best. In Lara’s case, she got insanely lucky. But she also had her own tenacity and willingness to fight. She knew she had made terrible mistakes, but she never gave up on the idea that she had something to offer. She was smart, resourceful, and dedicated. Her story shows us that with a little faith placed upon someone hard on their luck, anyone can come back from the hellish existence of an addict. Sometimes opportunity is all one needs to realize their own potential.

Ultimately this is a beautiful story of survival and perseverance. It is, however, also about atonement and a giving back where someone has only been previously willing to take. It’s about forgiveness given and even forgiveness denied. If you’re looking for a good uplifting memoir, this is a good one. There’s a lot of ugly stuff in the world and a story of one person’s escape from the ugliness is quite worth it. The audio is read by the author, which gives it a very personal feel. Overall, 4 stars for this one.

Published August 1, 2023 by Simon & Schuster. ISBN 1982197668. Runtime 8 hrs 59 mins. Narrated by the Author.