A book about love found in a life filled with hate.
Megan Phelps-Roper picketed against homosexuality before she was old enough to know how to even spell the word.
As the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, the fire and brimstone founder and preacher of the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan grew up reviled by much of the world as a member of the most hated family in the United States.
As Megan grew up picketing funerals of American soldiers, so I grew up hating her family and their beliefs. As Megan entered the world of social media, spreading her family's hate in new ways, so I sparred with her online. As much as she believed the toxic messages she tweeted and shared, so I believed hating her and arguing with her online made me a good person.
When I heard she had left the church, her family and her entire life behind when she and her sister Grace very publicly left the church in 2012, I looked forward to the searing tell-all I was sure would follow.
I was sure any book she wrote would be full of anger, of hate and of betrayal. Surely, she would write of life in a fearsome cult, of being beaten for disobedience and a childhood devoid of anything but hate and a distorted gospel.
This book, I thought, would prove I had been right because she had been wrong.
I did not expect a book full of love.
Yet that is what Megan has written. A beautiful, compelling read of love, forgiveness, family and compassion.
Not what I expected from anything connected to Westboro Baptist, let alone from the granddaughter of Fred Phelps.
But even Fred Phelps, he who stated aids was God's punishment for homosexuality, is more complex than you might think.
Until reading this book, I only knew of his hatred and lack of compassion, but Megan introduces the reader to a different Fred. This Fred was once a crusading Civil Rights lawyer, who fought for the rights of blacks in 1960s segregated America.
This Fred was himself excommunicated from the church he founded before he died, after he allegedly expressed his support for a group promoting LGBT equality which had their offices across the street from the church base.
Megan doesn't use these two instances as excuses for her grandfather, or to argue he wasn't a hate preacher, but deftly demonstrates how we all are complex beings, and we are all more than just one thing.
Someone being wrong, does not make the other person right. I had grown up decrying her hatred by showing hate myself. Megan's book challenges everything you might think you know about the Westboro Baptist Church and her family and also makes you challenge your own actions and emotions.
We are all more than just one thing. Hating a group does not by default make you a good person. It is love that makes you a good person, and for a woman who grew up in hate, Megan knows a lot about love.
Her family taught her to hate, but they also taught her a lot. They taught her intolerance, but also taught her a love of family, a love of the law, a love of words and a self belief strong enough to carry her through the hardest days of leaving all she had ever known.
Before Megan even begins her story, she writes of love.
The dedication in the book is to her parents, the parents who refuse to see her or talk to her now she has left the church. Her parents may hate her, but she does not hate them. She writes of their love and tenderness, not excusing their hate, but rather seeing past it.
Love, not hate, is the key message throughout this book. Megan has found love in a life where hate was the main emotion. Not just love in and for her family, but also those outside of it.
In leaving the church, Megan has found love from the very people she grew up hating and the story of her journey from hate to love makes compelling reading.
This regular column showcases some of the books available to borrow from the Stratford or South Taranaki book catalogues. The books are chosen by our editorial team.
As well as borrowing books from the Stratford Library, Stratford library card holders can also borrow books from the South Taranaki book catalogue at no extra cost.
This shared service is very popular, with over 300 books moving between the libraries each week. Library users can reserve books online regardless of which library they belong to and can also return issued books to the Stratford Library or any of the seven South Taranaki libraries.
Reserving items is free. Library members are notified by email or a phone call when reserved items are ready to collect.
All of the books reviewed in this column are available to borrow through the library system.