The Miseducation of Cameron Post

by Emily M Danforth

Set in rural Montana in the early 1990s, emily m. danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a powerful and widely acclaimed YA coming-of-age novel in the tradition of the classic Annie on My Mind. Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident. Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth she eventually comes to-that she's gay. Orphaned, Cameron comes to live with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt Ruth. There she falls in love with her best friend, a beautiful cowgirl. When she's eventually outed, her aunt sends her to God's Promise, a religious conversion camp that is supposed to "cure" her homosexuality. At the camp, Cameron comes face to face with the cost of denying her true identity. The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and provocative literary debut that was a finalist for the YALSA Morris Award and was named to numerous "best" lists.

• ISBN10: 0062020579
• ISBN13: 9780062020574
• Publish Date: 28 May 2013 (first published 7 February 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: Balzer and Bray
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

YES!
+A return to the 1990s! Well, it actually starts in Summer of 1989, before my time, but still. The decade of my childhood. The days of mixed tapes and VHS rentals.
+Cameron knows she likes girls and never doubts it, even attending a church and youth group every week which tells her that it's wrong. Is it really sinful? Cameron doesn't know, she just knows that it's part of who she is. Although she's not out. Not quite.
+The second half of this book is set at a conversion camp in disguise as a real school. Well, they do real school work and all that, but the main purpose is essentially to "pray the gay away." It was sick and fascinating. Cameron never falls prey to it though. She plays along to not get in trouble, but she's not giving in to their manipulation. Things get very dark, very fast though.

NO!
-Looong chapters.
-When is something going to happen?! The first half was sooo slow. Everything just dragged. Then it got really good, and just ended.

[clementine]

I did not think I was going to like this as much as I did, mainly because it's billed as YA and I haven't really connected with YA in years now. (I know this is controversial, but whatever. I'm not going to get into that today.) However, suffice to say I loved it and wouldn't have changed a thing about it.

It seems that people's main criticism of this book is the pacing, i.e. that it takes too long to get to "the good stuff". But I don't think that Cameron's stint in conversion therapy is "the good stuff". I think the entire history of her emergent lesbian identity is fascinating, and realistic, and gorgeously-written. I loved the languid pace of the first half, but I guess I generally don't mind slower novels. In fact, I honestly found it hard to put this book down - I wanted to know what would happen next, when she would hook up with Coley, how she would be discovered. Plus, you know, how often do teenage lesbians get the privilege of unhurried coming of age stories? BASICALLY NEVER.

Cameron was such a great character: funny and acerbic on the surface, but deeply insecure at her core. Yet she is so strong in her conviction that she is who she is and that there's nothing wrong with and nothing that can change it. She reminded me of the protagonist of Rubyfruit Jungle in some ways, though she's more clearly unsure of her place in the world. The various points at which Cameron's friends try to coax a confession of her sexuality out of her ring so true - it's not that she's ashamed, it's that she isn't ready to articulate herself to others yet. It's details like that - so recognizable to LGBTQ people - that I think the straight audience might be missing out on. Which is fine, but if you know what to look for, if you have been in Cameron's position even in a small way, this book will be that much more resonant.

[ibeforem]

Cameron Post is a young girl who has basically the worst thing happen to her — her parents are killed in a car accident. Coincidentally, that same day is the first time she kisses a girl, and because children aren’t logical, she connects the two events in her mind, thus beginning several years of confusion and denial and secrecy.

In the mid-90s, rural Montana isn’t really a bastion of progressive or inclusive thought. Cameron had a difficult path to navigate as she tries to figure out who she is and who her real friends are. And when one of those friends betrays her, she has to start all over again in an even more difficult environment.

As an adult, I really related to the time period in the book. I would have been right around Cameron’s age, and the story made me think about what would have happened if there were a Cameron in my hometown, in my high school. Heck, there may have been a Cameron, and I just didn’t know it.

I do have a few minor criticisms. For one, I thought it was a little too long. And two, it ends *really* abruptly. I actually would forgo some of the earlier parts of the book in exchange for a little more followup. Though I guess it says good things about the story that I want to know what happens next!

[brokentune]

"I told myself that I didn’t believe any of that shit, but there it was, repeated to me day after day after day. And when you’re surrounded by a bunch of mostly strangers experiencing the same thing, unable to call home, tethered to routine on ranchland miles away from anybody who might have known you before, might have been able to recognize the real you if you told them you couldn’t remember who she was, it’s not really like being real at all. It’s plastic living. It’s living in a diorama. It’s living the life of one of those prehistoric insects encased in amber: suspended, frozen, dead but not, you don’t know for sure."

I really liked this book, and writing up this review I had to amend my original rating - as is the sign of any good book that makes you think.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post was advertised as a YA novel, and maybe it is one, but I did not read it as such. Cameron is in her early teens when the story begins in 1989. What struck me from the outset of the story is how sensitive the narration was to the time it is set in. There are a lot of references to music and tv programmes of the time but they are not used to club you over the head and make you feel the time period. In fact, when we get to know Cameron and her family, the book very much made me anticipate what their day to day routines would have looked like before the narration tells us about it.

I guess the story resonated with me in that way because the fictional Cameron in 1989 is only a couple of years older than me. Like Cameron, I spent my afternoons roaming around with friends whilst my grandparents watched Perry Mason and Matlock. Anyway, this is probably where the similarities end, but to me it illustrates that The Miseducation of Cameron Post is not strictly a YA novel, but also one written for a generation of parents who may have had difficulties to deal with Cameron's generation, and my generation, growing up at that time. I will come back to this point a little later.

It's difficult to discuss the book without giving away much of the story, so if you don't want to read spoilers - stop here.

Cameron is gay and much of the first half of the book deals with the story of a teenager who comes to terms with her sexuality. It also deals with the story of a teenager who has lost her parents and has to come to terms with loss and grief.

As a movie fan Cameron seeks a lot of comfort in films and music.


"But if renting all those movies had taught me anything more than how to lose myself in them, it was that you only actually have perfectly profound little moments like that in real life if you recognize them yourself, do all the fancy shot work and editing in your head, usually in the very seconds that whatever is happening is happening. And even if you do manage to do so, just about never does anyone else you’re with at the time experience that exact same kind of moment, and it’s impossible to explain it as it’s happening , and then the moment is over."

Cameron is a great character. She's snarky, funny, tough, subtle, smart, gentle, and very aware of her surroundings. Cameron is also unafraid to be true to herself and even she falls in love.


"I tried to turn off my lamp and sleep, on top of the covers, my shirt and hair wet, the fan on, the phone lying on the bed next to me, but it was still early and I wasn’t tired. I played one of the new mixes from Lindsey, a bunch of bands and singers I’d not yet heard of, but it felt like too much work to try to really listen to new songs sung by new voices, too much thinking, somehow, so I changed to Tom Petty and felt sorry for myself and then mad at myself for feeling like that and then sorry for myself again."

Of course, her family and community are not comfortable with Cameron's sexuality and when she is found out, her family sends her to God's Promise, a religious institution that specialises in reforming homosexual teenagers.

The second half of the book describes her life at the "reform school", the friends she makes, the hypocrisy of an institution that seems to have fewer objections to recreational drug use than to human nature.

Although God's Promise, the reform school, is not physically mistreating the "disciples" the book clearly describes the incompetence of the staff and the absurdity and incoherence of a religious argument against homosexuality - but the "disciples", having being abandoned by their families and homeless, are powerless.

"I could hear Lindsey in my head telling me to say Really? Well, if homosexuality is just like the sin of murder, then who dies, exactly, when homosexuals get together to sin? But Lindsey wasn’t sitting there with the two of them. And Lindsey wasn’t exiled to Promise for at least a year. So I kept the Lindsey part of me quiet."

Even when events reach their crisis point, Cameron and her friends are left to their own devices. So they make a choice.

"And there was a whole world beyond that shoreline, beyond the forest, beyond the knuckle mountains, beyond, beyond, beyond, not beneath the surface at all, but beyond and waiting."

At first the ending seems like a cop out, like the easy solution to the books problem of the three teenagers escaping from the confines of God's Promise, but then it made me think, too, because one has to think what would become of them. Would they find shelter somewhere? Would they stay together and find a way to start their lives? Or would they be swallowed up like many runaways?

You see this is where I had a change of mind about who the book was written for. Because reading the ending from the perspective of a YA, the ending might seem filled with hope. However, reading as someone who's witnessed friends in similar circumstances at that time or maybe as a parent would, I cannot help but wonder what became of the three, and I cannot help but be concerned for them.

After all, it was not just Tom Petty's Into the Great Wide Open that acts as a soundtrack to the book but I was also reminded of another song that was reflected some of the issues of the time - Runaway Train.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Ever since I saw an interview from last year with Emily M. Danforth on Malinda Lo's blog, I have wanted to read The Miseducatication of Cameron Post. Her answers are so in-depth and there was so much to learn from that one interview (seriously, read it!), I knew I had to read this book! And I am so glad I did, because it's absolutely amazing.

On the day Cameron finds herself kissing a girl, her parents die. From that day on, her whole world changes. Living with her grandmother and her very religious aunt, she is brought up with certain ideas about homosexuality; Cam questions what she feels and what she's told, worrying that her parents died as punishment for her "sin". But the various people she meets along the way and the numerous movies she secretly watches tell her a different story. Cam tries to keep her relationships secret, but nothing stays secret for ever.

Oh my god, this book is so awesome, it really shows us the views from just over two decades ago - only two decades! - and most of it made me so angry! Seriously, there are some characters in this book I really don't get. Even when their views are explained with the Bible, it just makes me so sick! But more on that later.

What's great about Cameron Post is that we get to see Cam from the age of 11, almost 12, until she's 16. We get to see her first experiences with another girl from such a young age, and then see her grow, see her mature - in the way she thinks, in the way she speaks. This story is about Cam discovering and exploring her sexuality, and what the consequences of doing so are, but the death of her parents is intertwined. As much as this is a story about sexuality, it's mainly about Cam herself. Cam discovering she's a lesbian, Cam dealing with the death of her parents when she's reminded, when the event creeps back up on her. These two, huge, important things to Cam get linked for her in certain moments, like her belief that her parents died because she kissed a girl, the blame she feels. The reaction of her aunt and grandmother when the truth is finally discovered make her think about how her parents may have reacted if they were around. But they're not, so she'll never know, never know if she would have to go through with them what she is going through now. And questions from others crop up; would she "sin" like she does if her parents had raised her differently? If her parents hadn't died and she didn't "run away" from dealing with that by taking part in "sinful activities"? It's like there is a correlation between the two simply because they are forced together so often.

There are so many quotes I want to share with you, but there are just too many. I narrowed it down to the points I really want to discuss. The two different ideas that come across. The first is from Lindsey, a girl who Cam has a summer relationship with. She's a character who has thrown herself right into what homosexuality is, means, on a wider scale.

'With Irene, nothing we were doing or feeling was named as part of anything bigger than just the two of us. With Lindsey, everything was. She started me in on the language of gay; sometimes she talked about how liking girls is political and revolutionary and counter-cultural, all these names and terms that I didn't even know that I was supposed to know'. (p99)

Lindsey is a lesbian, but it seems more like who she is, rather than just an aspect of herself. Like it's an attitude, a whole lifestyle. And she knows her stuff. She has all these opinions and knows all these things going on in the world and is so pro-active in the LGBT community. Lindsey does come across a bit patronising with her know-it-all nature, but it's refreshing to have such a voice in the book, when almost all over views are that it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Like the opinions of Pastor Crawford at her Evangelical church Gates of Praise:

'"Don't be fooled by what you might see on television, the kinds of sick movements happening in parts of this country. Time and again, in Leviticus, in Romans, the Bible is exact and unwavering about homo-sesh-oo-al acts as clear abominations on the Lord."' (p100)

He goes on to talk about how those who are "lured into this sort of unhealthy lifestyle" are the people who are "in most desperate need of Christ's love: junkies, prostitutes, the mentally ill and teenage runaways" (p100) - way to stereotype, huh? It makes me so angry! Cam does question whether she would be considered to be among those people, being an orphan, but as she says, 'How could I pretend to be a victim when I was so willing to sin?' (p100).

With both of these opposing sides, you can understand how Cam would be so confused over what is right and wrong, what to believe in, what to hope for.

'How could I possibly believe Lindsey when she told me that two women could live together like man and wife, and even be accepted, when Pastor Crawford spoke with such authority about the wicked perversion of homosexuality?' (p99)

And then there is the worse view, in my opinion, where one of the characters denies the existence of homosexuality, and then compares this "sin" with murder. Murder! Can you believe it?! Lydia makes my blood boil!

'"There's no such thing as homosexuality," she said. "Homosexuality is a myth perpetuated by the so-called gay rights movement." She spaced out each word of her next sentence. "There is no gay identity, it does not exist. Instead, there is only the same struggle with sinful desires and behaviours that we, as God's children, each must content with...
"Do we say that someone who commits the sin of murder is part of some group of people who have that identity feature in common? Do we let murderers throw themselves parades and meet up in murderers' clubs to get high and dance the night away and then go out and commit murder together? Call it just another aspect of their identity?...
Sin is sin."' (p298)

I know it's a book, it's just fiction, but reading that last line just makes me want to shout, "LOVE IS LOVE!" Seriously, this book brought out the rage in me, I swear. To think that people actually exist with these opinions disgusts me.

Beyond the various views of what people think about homosexuality, there are the experiences, the feelings, the love. And the questions. Not everyone is happy with what they're discovering about themselves.

'"It goes against everything," [Coley] said, some of her voice burried in the pillow. "This is like--it's just supposed to be silly or whatever. I don't want to be like that."
"Like what?" I asked. Somehow, even after what I'd just done, what we'd done, I felt ashamed, the guilty party.
"Like a couple of dykes," she said.
"What does that even mean?"
"You know what it means."
"To who?"
"How about God, for one," she said, turning and looking at me dead on...
"Doesn't this feel really big to you?" she asked. "I mean like too big? It's like the more time we spend together the harder it is to turn off."
"Maybe that means we're not supposed to turn it off," I said.
"Maybe it means we shouldn't have started in the first place," Coley answered.' (p226-227)

There is so much more I want to discuss about this book, but I would be spoiling such a huge section of the book that is best discovered as you read. Speaking of which, if you visit Danforth's website, I would advise not reading the reviews on there until you have finished the book. I had something huge spoiled for me by reading one of the quotes on there, and it really wound me up. Fortunately, I was only a few pages off it all kicking in, but still.

If I was to give this book any criticism, it would be... I'm not really sure what to call it. It took me weeks, weeks, like three or four, to read this book, and that's not down to the length. I was seriously loving this book when I was reading it, but once I put it down, for dinner, etc., I didn't want to pick it back up. It was hard. I had to force myself to pick it up several times. I just wasn't motivated to read it. I don't know if it's this book or if I was in a reading slump or what, but I had a real tough time getting through it. But this is probably, hopefully, just my personal experience.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is an incredible coming-of-age novel that takes an awesome look at one girl's self-discovery, coming into her own. Now I've finished it, I can say for certain that I absolutely loved it! It's one hell of a powerful story, and I highly recommend it!

[Kelly]

Just couldn't get into it.