This book is so beautifully written.
I admire the author so much for letting us into her life.
She is such a brave woman.
This is a brilliant insightful book

This was more interesting and thoughtful than I had expected, with a surprising amount of bible study. It was too long, and at times lacked momentum. It's hard to reconcile sympathy for her, the first third of the book outlines shocking and outrageous behaviour. I was surprised by how little time is spent on her revised views, just her questioning and dismissal of WBC.

I didn’t know much about Megan Phelps-Roper before I picked up Unfollow to read. I hadn’t seen the Louis Theroux documentary and I hadn’t watched the television series so I really was going into this memoir blind. My only clue was that sometimes the ideologies of a church – any church – can often be at odds with the modern world. Wow, that was putting it mildly.

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up within the Baptist community where every member of her family played some role within the religious group. She was fed the ideology on a daily basis and believed everything that was told to her. She believed that people of the LGBT community deserved to die and that soldiers who died in service were killed because of God’s divine retribution and the parents of the soldier must have sinned for this to have happened.

It all seems completely mad. However, I spent the majority of the memoir feeling sorry for Megan Phelps-Roper. She is a product of what she has been taught. Just like the old adage that people aren’t born racist. People aren’t born with these views. It is learned behaviour. What you find with Phelps-Roper is that she is genuinely sorry for thinking the way she did but is still so torn with loving her family who for all intents and purposes gave her a stable and loving upbringing yet she fundamentally disagrees with their point of view.

Unfollow is a fascinating read to see how people can change and how being indoctrinated into one way of life does not mean that it is your permanent destination. You have the ability to change and see the world from a different angle.

Unfollow – A Journey from Hatred to Hope, Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper is available now.

For more information regarding Megan Phelps Roper (@meganphelps) please visit www.meganphelpsroper.com.

For more information regarding Quercus Books (@QuercusBooks) please visit their Twitter page.

Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper is a memoir about her extreme fundamentalist upbringing and her breaking away from it.

In this completely compelling memoir, Megan Phelps recounts her life with the infamous Westboro Baptist Church and her gradual evolution from fervent believer in all the church stood for to the realisation that the certainties she’d grown up with were all false. At the age of 26, in 2012, she managed to break away and leave. She’s the granddaughter of the founder of the church, Fred Phelps and like all the members was expected to play a full role in the demonstrations and picketings that she was told were God’s will. As an atheist I find it so hard to comprehend how so much hate can be generated by so-called Christians, but Megan does a good job in explicating Westboro’s world view. It’s an important book, both in describing the cult and as an incentive for others to start to question the beliefs they have been inculcated with and to show that it is possible to reject those beliefs and to break away. Judged purely as a memoir, however, there’s no doubt that it is too long and repetitive and there were times when I found it dragged somewhat, particularly after Megan had left and was trying to build a new life, but overall I found it enlightening and thought-provoking – if deeply troubling about the harm religion can do.

This was a deep and heart wrenching book that really made me think on the dichotomy of hate. It's incredibly powerful and very much a must read.

Megan Phelps-Roper's upbringing was normal in many ways. She had a loving home, with devoted parents and the normal rough and tumble that comes from having lots of siblings.

But there was something very different about the way Megan was raised that thrust her and her family into the media spotlight - she was born into the infamous Westboro
Baptist Church.

The Westboro Baptist Church is not your normal run of the
mill Baptist Church - instead this is an ultra-religious sect, espousing aggressive homophobic and anti-Semitic views and it is well-known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers and celebrating natural disasters as the will of God.

Megan was brought up to see public protest as a normal way of life - even to the point of protesting outside her own high school graduation - and the only way to spread the one true gospel. She was helping to preach God's truth to the non-believers on their way to Hell.

But in November 2012, at the age of twenty-six, Megan left her church, family and everything she had been raised to believe behind. This is her own, very personal story of how she came to realise that the truth she had been taught since infancy was false, and how she was able to find compassion for others, as well as herself.

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This book was totally fascinating. Having heard quite a lot about the Westboro Baptist Church - after all they are not shy of publicity and have even been the subject of two documentaries by Louis Theroux - I was prepared to thoroughly dislike Megan Phelps-Roper. After all, how can you find common ground with someone who was brought up to hold beliefs that are abhorrent to you?

But Megan's memoir is so utterly honest and compelling that it is impossible to hate her, even though she has done some pretty unpleasant things as part of the Westboro family. Once you understand about Megan's upbringing, it is easy to see how she considered the sect like views of her church and family to be completely normal. Her extended family was a loving one and her whole life revolved around the church that had been started by her own charismatic grandfather. As far as she was concerned, her beliefs and those of her family were correct in every way and even though their actions were reviled by outsiders, they were following the word of God and had a duty to act as they did.

I still cannot condone the actions that Megan describes being part of in any way, but I now understand the whys and where-fors and this helped me to develop sympathy with Megan. In fact, I found myself taking Megan's side so much that I got quite indignant on her behalf when she could see how the doctrines of the Church were being subverted by the new council of elders!

What I was not prepared for, is the fact that the members of the Westboro Church are all highly educated, and not the ignorant religious fanatics I assumed them to be. It seems incredible to me that anyone who has read and studied as freely as Megan and her family, can still hold the beliefs they do. How they could not appreciate the irony of some of their actions is baffling - protesting outside your win high school graduation and then going in to accept your diploma? Strange indeed!

Megan herself began to question what she had been taught as she got older, and to see that things can be seen in a different light. I am thankful that she did, as it has allowed her to find the compassion and understanding that was missing from her time as a Church member. She has been able to grow in a way that would not have been possible if she had not torn herself away from everything she knew - and I now know how hard she has found this, as she does not shy away from describing how she has struggled. It has been wonderful to share Megan's journey and I am grateful to her for sharing her experiences in this book.

Unfollow is the kind of memoir that I enjoy best - raw and uncompromising, it makes you confront your own truths and reassess how you look at someone who has been raised with such utterly different beliefs to your own. It shows you that the human spirit can redeem itself, no matter how impossible this appears. This is a story about hope and I wish Megan everything good in the future - may you find happiness, Megan.

The day after the night before and I have finally managed to gather my thoughts 💭 of this wonderful book.
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This has been the most anticipated book of the year. It certainly was worth the wait.
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What Megan has achieved by writing this book is just incredible. She has unpeeled everything that was her ‘old life’ as a member of the Westbrook Baptist Church and her battle to find a new life.
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Here no details have been left unturned nor untouched. This is by no means a book about hate but also about Megan’s memories of being part of a loving family.
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Her journey of discovery. Discovering what is the truth in regards to her being a member of this church and how it encased her family and also a journey of discovering herself and who she is outside religion, the church and the family.
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The sacrifice that she made leaving everything that she knows behind. She stand up for her convictions within the church and how that inner strength carries her through learning this outside the church.
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I can only imagine that this was a difficult book to write. Bringing back painful memories of being in the church and having such a close relationship with her parents,siblings and grandparents. .
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It is so beautifully and well written it give you hope when you feel conflicted and hopeless. It stays with you.
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After finishing this I needed time to gather my thoughts as it had such an impact on me.

This book was rightly compared to Educated, and that's why I requested it. I do like learning about different societies and upbringings and how people cope with that.
While the environments and the writings were very different, if you enjoyed Educated, I believe you'll enjoy this book.
I thought it was written more in a poignant and emotional tone. It was interesting to see how the writer got out of something very intensely ingrained in her brain.
I highly recommend it.
Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to Quercus Books/riverrun for an eARC via NetGalley of Megan Phelps-Roper’s ‘Unfollow’ in exchange for an honest review.

This powerful, raw memoir is subtitled ‘A Journey from Hatred to Hope, leaving the Westboro Baptist Church’. I watched the BBC documentaries by Louis Theroux about the Westboro Church and over the years was aware of their campaigns.

Megan Phelps-Roper had been raised in the Westboro Baptist Church and taken part from age five in their aggressive homophobic and anti-Semitic protests. However, in November 2012 at the age of twenty-six, she left her church, family, and former life behind.

It is a fascinating account and Megan’s intelligence shines through. I found it interesting and inspiring to learn of the role of Twitter and how it was her interactions with various people online that challenged her and opened her up to further questioning of the WBC’s doctrines.

After I finished reading ‘Unfollow’ I watched Louis Theroux’s most recent documentary, ‘Surviving America’s Most Hated Family, in which he interviewed Megan and again she spoke eloquently about her journey.

One of the best memoirs that I have ever read. Highly recommended.

This is a poignant and intense book, a travel from an upbringing in an environment full of hate to a new life.
I like how the author tells her life, how she describes the environment and the indoctrination she was subjected, and how she broke free and created a new life for herself.
It's never over the top and it's never judgemental.
An interesting read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I, myself, am agnostic/non-religious, but I don't have an issue with others believing in a higher being as in this life, we need to hold dear those things that bring us comfort. The trouble really begins when a religious group turns into a cult. I first heard about Westboro Baptist Church through Louis Theroux's programme some time ago and finding it intriguing I knew when I spotted this that it was right up my street. Megan Phelps-Roper delivers a scathing attack on the indoctrination and behaviour she experienced all through her childhood and formative years. What I love is that it very much reads like a thriller but of course, it's real-life; you have to keep reminding yourself that the author went through these shocking things.

Unfollow is a raw and honest written account of life both inside and outside the church and her struggle to escape from a life and family she no longer wanted to be part of. She has finally been able to move on from this and is living freely but there is no doubt it will impact her forever. A deeply moving and emotional read written in an exquisitely compassionate and forgiving tone, and I am so glad to hear of her meeting and marrying the man she loved. This rings with a powerful authenticity and will undoubtedly stay with me for a long time to come. Phelps-Roper pens a brave and fiercely inspirational book in which she sings like a bird finally released from its cage. Highly recommended. Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC.