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

947 reviews for:

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

Megan Phelps-Roper

4.15 AVERAGE

crizzle's review against another edition

4.5

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

baileydakkota's review against another edition

4.0

I found myself enjoying this much more than I ever suspected I would. This year I two reading goals 1. to read through the alphabet (by title) 2. branch out my reading into other genres other than the contemporary romance and fantasy novels i typically gravitate towards.

Knowing those to goals, i picked up Unfollow at a bookstore on a road trip through, surprise surprise, Kansas. I still needed a U and what better to branch out than a non-fiction memoir.

I went into Megan’s story mostly blind. I grew up in a religious household, in the time of the internet, not too far from the origins of the WBC, but beyond the name and the infamous hate signs I knew nothing else. So I was shocked to be getting the inside look into the history of WBC and the authors early childhood. In several pieces of Megan’s story do I see the resemblance to my childhood and then later transition away from the church.

This is probably the first non fiction book I have read in 5+ outside like college required reading so I did find it hard to stay with the story at times. Long chapters with a ton of detail made it easy for me to want to set the book down and take hours (sometimes even days) long breaks between them. That’s probably the only reason I couldn’t give it 5 stars - difficult read at times.

aaron12493's review against another edition

3.0

reflective sad slow-paced

alissamk's review against another edition

4.0

This was a very emotional read. Interesting insight into cult deprogramming, but also a practical lesson important for any of us to remember: always remain critical and question the ideas around you.