Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church

Holly says: Megan Phelps-Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, which made headlines for picketing funerals of soldiers during the wars of the early 2000s and for their violently homophobic rhetoric. Phelps-Roper grew up holding those picket signs and explaining to others how God’s truth aligned with these hateful statements. As a member of a loving family, she never questioned her beliefs….until one day, she did. I appreciated Phelps-Roper’s ability to capture the nuance of loving her family while knowing she needed to leave them and start a new life. I also found her stories of reconciliation with some of the people she’d hurt along the way to be quite powerful. I discovered this memoir while listening to a podcast hosted by the author, and it offered an interesting insight into a group that I distinctly recall from the headlines. Content warnings apply.