num_pages: 305
description: As featured on the BBC documentary 'The Most Hated Family in America' it was an upbringing in many ways normal. A loving home shared with squabbling siblings overseen by devoted parents. Yet in other ways it was the precise opposite: a revolving door of TV camera crews and documentary makers a world of extreme discipline of siblings vanishing in the night.Megan Phelps-Roper was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church - the fire-and-brimstone religious sect at once aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic rejoiceful for AIDS and natural disasters and notorious for its picketing the funerals of American soldiers. From her first public protest aged five to her instrumental role in spreading the church's invective via social media her formative years brought their difficulties. But being reviled was not one of them. She was preaching God's truth. She was in her words 'all in'.In November 2012 at the age of twenty-six she left the church her family and her life behind. Unfollow is a story about the rarest thing of all: a person changing their mind. It is a fascinating insight into a closed world of extreme belief a biography of a complex family and a hope-inspiring memoir of a young woman finding the courage to find compassion for others as well as herself.
language: English
title: Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope
publisher: riverrun