I’ve followed Stephanie Stalvey on Instagram for some time, and I absolutely love her work. Her art is beautiful, and the themes she covers really resonate with me as someone who has been hurt by evangelical Christians.

Stalvey has struggled to unravel and make sense of the beliefs she was raised with. They were very polarised and binary – you were either in or out of God’s family, and if you were out, you were screwed, basically. She had to work hard to process what she’d been taught. A lot of it was worked out as she got married, and became a mother.

I can relate so much to what she went through, and how she was damaged by uncompromising, fanatical belief. I’ve been there myself, struggling with the same concepts, and ultimately emerging from it an atheist, but almost certainly a kinder and more generous person than I was when I struggled to do what I thought was God’s will.

I ploughed through it quickly, finding myself nodding furiously, and laughing and crying at how spot on she often was. I’m determined to write about my own experiences, and seeing how others do it has been really helpful.

This is one of the very, very few books I’ve given five stars – it’s really that good, although I appreciate it may not mean all that much to people who haven’t been part of a very controlling religious faith.

I was fully expecting to find the review section on Goodreads full of one-star reviews from evangelicals – they really hate it when their narrative is challenged – but so far it hasn’t happened. Long may that last.