About this ebook
From being beaten for resisting a childhood home perm to seducing a forbidden public-school athlete to reclaim her autonomy, Melissa’s early years were shaped by repression, shame, and indoctrination. Her escape from high-control religion launched her into a life of risk—Wall Street jobs, New York nightclubs, Hollywood hookups, and a series of abusive relationships. And yet, in these extremes, she was searching. Through self-reflection and finding her voice, and through an unexpected friendship with her father’s first victim, Melissa slowly reconstructs the self she was never allowed to know.
Holy Disobedience is not just a survivor’s tale. It’s a story of fierce honesty, radical freedom, and the beautiful mess of becoming whole.
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About the author
Melissa Duge Spiers is an award-winning essayist, screenwriter, and advocate for topics of religious abuse and resilience, utilizing her online platforms (TikTok and Instagram, known as “The Glory Whole”) to raise awareness and help others find healing. Her memoir Holy Disobedience won the 2022 Book Pipeline Unpublished Nonfiction Manuscript prize, with excerpts featured in The Huffington Post. Melissa’s writing appears in magazines nationwide, and she’s a contributor to Take the Fruit: An Anthology of Religious Trauma. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Barnard College and is based in California.
