Review: Being Lara by Lola Jaye

Being Lara by Lola Jaye 

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Pages: 320 

Format: paperback 

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  From the time she was five years old, Lara Reid knew she was an alien. Her dark complexion and kinky-hair-so unlike her fair-skinned mother and father's-were proof that she was different. At eight she learned the word "adopted." But the tale of a far-off orphanage in Nigeria was little more another bedtime story. 

Now Lara is 30 and a strange woman in a blue and black head tie is staring at her as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake. And though the woman is a stranger, Lara senses that she has known her for her entire life. She is her long-lost birth mother, Yomi, arrived from Africa. 

Thanks to her steely reserve, Lara has never fully opened herself to anyone, not even her boyfriend and she is determined not to allow Yomi's sudden appearance to change her life in any way. But some things can't be controlled, no matter how hard we try, and soon Lara's life is turning upside down, filled with dangerously unfamiliar emotions that take her completely by surprise. 

Torn in conflicting directions, desperate to flee, Lara knows she must face the truth about her past and the lives of her mothers, if she hopes to find peace, understanding, and acceptance of who she is-and what it means to be Lara.





Kritters Thoughts:  A story that kept me turning pages from beginning to end.  A little girl suddenly realizes that she is different from everyone else, her parents don't look like her and neither does the rest of her family.  Lara has a hard time finding out the reality of her situation and upon entering her 30th year she is finally finding out the real truth.


Jumping from past and present and between different characters, the reader gets the whole picture for this book - through the eyes of Lara, her adopted mother and her birth mother.  The reader finds out the history that leads each woman to where they are now in the present grappling with forming a new family unit.  I thought this was a fresh approach to the world of adoption.  We find out how she came to live at an orphanage and then what led her to London with her adopted parents.


I would recommend this to readers of all genres.  This story was a new take that I think most readers would enjoy.  It was a great read to find out how a young girl feels when she knows that her family isn't the norm.     




Rating:  definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row


Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.


For the rest of the tour:
Tuesday, March 13th: Kritters Ramblings
Wednesday, March 14th: The Book Bag
Thurday, March 15th: Veronica MD
Tuesday, March 20th: Just Joanna
Wednesday, March 21st: Book Club Classics!
Monday, March 26th: Peeking Between the Pages
Wednesday, March 28th: As I turn the pages
Thursday, March 29th: Twisting the Lens
Friday, March 30th: BookNAround
Monday, April 2nd: Knowing the Difference
Wednesday, April 4th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Friday, April 6th: Bookfoolery and Babble