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

We don't hear from the likes of Westboro Baptist Church anymore because they are all banned online. But they aren't uncommon. To me, this story is a validation for free speech principles. I'm glad the pre-Trump era Twitter, which didn't censor, changed her by allowing her to connect to other people she disagreed with. After Trump was elected, everything on Twitter was censored and she would have had no chance to open her mind to others online. Thank goodness Elon Musk brought freedom of speech back to Twitter. I can't think of a better way to spend a spare 44 billion dollars.Megan Phelps-Roper isn't the only person who left a cult, but she can write. I don't read fictions. This book reads like a fictional story with a feel-good happy ending. Very relatable. She's pretty charming, too; makes me root for her and hope for the best.This book makes me feel glad I was raised an atheist.Part of the reasons she left the church was because of politics. So I wonder if Westboro Baptist Church kept the same power structure, she would have left.

Megan's book is best read paired with those who also abandoned Westboro, as combined they form a complete-ish portrait of this odd church. Libby's book is more of a general "inside the life" of the church, whereas Lauren Drain's is essentially a character study of her father Steve. Both of those works understood (or their ghostwriters understood) that memoir is best when it highlights the lives of those other than the author.This is different. Megan's book is about Megan and Grace, nearly exclusively. We essentially get the story of them leaving the church from decision to execution to the journey after, with only the briefest examinations of "Gramps" and her mother Shirley. I found that rather disappointing when there seem to be far more interesting people to study and stories to tell. Jael, for instance, strikes me as someone whose desperation to be accepted by the church and strict adherence to the dogma would make a fascinating character study.All of this makes sense to an extent... Megan has said that the book was written as a gift for her husband and mother, and their main interest would be her motivations and thought process alone. Those who care most about this experience will be those who love or have loved Megan, and it's clear she's writing nearly exclusively to them (and her Twitter followers). Her title is certainly unambiguous, so it's impossible to accuse the book of straying from the story it's designed to tell. It will be a fascinating bit of history for her family down the line, but unfortunately for the rest of us there isn't a lot of inside perspective on the church operation; just Megan and Grace's Operation Escape. Even the other Westboro defectors are only mentioned in the context of how they affected Megan or made her feel, with little to no interest shown in their own conflicts or unique stories.That said, the very best part of this book is the writing. Despite its fairly egocentric purpose, I was motivated to read to the end just to enjoy Megan's beautiful prose. This is not some ghostwritten work designed to vilify others and gloss over the subject's character flaws (a good description of Lauren's book, which despite being much more interesting to read reeked of a quick-turnaround cynical cash-in). Megan is one hell of a wordsmith, and whatever failings her book has for a general audience it makes up for in narrative beauty. I marveled at many beautiful descriptions and finely-crafted sentences. I was jealous in many places of her talent.The years she spent writing this show, and it's to her credit that it wasn't released until it was damn good and ready. Extremely impressive for her first foray into memoir despite falling into the beginner's trap of making it all about her.Now, if she takes those skills and applies them to a real history of her family, keeping the focus on their stories and away from hers that has already been told, then we could really have something special... not just for her own family's posterity, but for the world's.

It's an amazing story of risk, loss, fear and awakening. Having spent her entire life inside the Westboro Baptist Church, which is actually more of a hate group with the hate directed at, well, anyone who isn't a member. Not being religious, I knew of the Westboro Baptist Church only due to the vileness of their homemade picket signs, sometimes carried by children who could have had no idea what the signs actually meant.Had Megan Phelps-Roper not had access to the internet, more specifically Twitter, it is likely she would still be an acid tongued, closed minded evangelical carrier of the cruelest messages the church could think up. One example being the celebration of the Sandy Hook massacre. Much like ex-scientologists who still refer to it as church, she still refers to Westboro Baptist as a church. For someone born and raised into a life she didn't leave until her late twenties, the author seems remarkably well adjusted as she tells the story of why and how she chose to leave her parents and many of her brothers and sisters plus 50 or so extended family members which she had seen every day of her life.Her story of life inside the cult-like church and how she broke away and found a new life is a great story. A lot of paper is used to quote biblical scripture, much of which is easily skipped as it is meaningless except in the context of how her grandfather, the church's founder, interpreted it and how every member adopted that interpretation as the God's only truth. What is astonishing about this story is that one's assumption might be that these church members were a group of inbred, uneducated, low - IQ automatons. In truth many of the adults were lawyers - one aunt even arguing before the Supreme Court - and that so many of these adults attended high school, college and law school while remaining unquestioning followers of an ugly and antediluvian fire and brimstone ideology. One can only hope that the author's extended family will secretly download her book and see a light.

Every sign in this book is full of hate (well – there is one remarkable exception), yet the book is full of love.Thank you, Megan, for sharing so much of your life with us.

This review also appears on GoodreadsWhat a journey! Megan Phelps-Roper is wonderful company. Her writing style is vivid, highly intelligent and engaging. I love travelling with writers as they share their epiphanies and move toward escaping their predicaments. Weirdly, as abhorrent as the Westboro Baptist Church is, her parents did something right….Megan’s become an exemplary human being.I also gobbled up Louis Theroux’s three-part documentary series (BBC: America’s Most Hated Family/In Crisis/Surviving) and watched Megan’s talks (Ted/Oxford Union) and can’t recommend them enough; really rounds out the experience.What blows my mind is her inner peace and lack of resentment - she embodies grace and has, since ditching her “religion”, paradoxically become a true Christian, even though she currently espouses no creed.The up-close look at a complicated family, the threading of parental abuse through generations, indoctrinating children to enjoy hate, terrifying them with Old Testament horrors, the powerful solidarity of a cult and the poignant complexity of filial love is completely absorbing.If you’re an armchair psychologist like me, you'll find the malignant narcissism that runs through everything WBC fascinating, especially Steve Drain, the ubertoxic non-family joiner. (BBC Doc Note: A failed filmmaker, Drain's deliciously passive-aggressive encounters with Theroux, a highly successful filmmaker, are priceless).And, if you’ve left or limited communication with a “when I want your opinion I’ll give it to you” narcissistic family structure, this book is very, very healing.Thank you Megan!

Great for a couple of rainy days inside, couldn’t put it down!For parts of this book I listened to the audio recording, which was read by Megan herself. Her love and her grief are present in her voice, adding a layer of tenderness to an already heartbreaking, yet life affirming story.Megan uses her eloquent wit to weave a gripping, personal tale that inspires deeper reflections on the reader’s understanding of human nature, belief, faith, truth, psychology, dissonance, family, conditioning, fear and ultimately, God. This book is at once a story of a cult, a coming-of-age, a family drama, an adventure and a romance.For someone who is not familiar with the bible, I actually appreciated her theological insights and inclusions of bible verses. They provided context to a world that is hard to imagine from the outside looking in. I also find it fascinating that Megan (and others who’ve left the WBC) have the bible as a physical guidebook to critically examine the extend of their childhood programming. My own childhood conditioning is a lot more murky!All in all, highly recommend reading this book that is ultimately all about Love.

Amazing! Being a ministers kid that has struggled with my feelings around my indoctrination and brainwashing as a child, Megan’s story had shed so much light and healing in little dark places. The courage and wisdom you shared are an inspiration. Thank you!!

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.