Take a photo of a barcode or cover
pamjsa 's review for:
Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope
by Megan Phelps-Roper
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book--but whatever it was, I got something much better. This is a shockingly powerful book in spite of the fact that most of it takes place during Megan Phelps-Roper's years as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. I would not have thought it possible to feel any compassion for such a hateful group, but Phelps-Roper does a masterful job of balancing her love for her family with her growing realization that their message of hate is toxic and anything but biblical. In the end, the only thing I found myself wondering was whether, in her shoes, I would have been able to walk away from the only reality I'd ever known (not to mention all the people I had loved, and by whom I had been loved, for my entire life.)
Phelps-Roper takes care to show how the WBC isn't much different from the world outside it; ultimately, the church crumbles under the weight of misogyny and patriarchal authoritarianism, leaving even its founder, the notorious Fred Phelps, ostracized and destroyed. I would never have imagined it possible to find myself weepy in reading about his death, but imagining him as someone's beloved Gramps, all alone in his final days and struggling with dementia, left me no choice other than compassion for him as a human being. Any book that can take me to that place is just phenomenal, as far as I'm concerned.
Phelps-Roper takes care to show how the WBC isn't much different from the world outside it; ultimately, the church crumbles under the weight of misogyny and patriarchal authoritarianism, leaving even its founder, the notorious Fred Phelps, ostracized and destroyed. I would never have imagined it possible to find myself weepy in reading about his death, but imagining him as someone's beloved Gramps, all alone in his final days and struggling with dementia, left me no choice other than compassion for him as a human being. Any book that can take me to that place is just phenomenal, as far as I'm concerned.