The Miseducation of Cameron Post in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jun 24, 2013 stephanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: would-rec, contemporaryfiction, young-adult, sac-pub-library, prize-winners, adolescent, realistic-fiction-ya, 2013, stand-alone, 50-states-of-ya-2013

man. i did not know what to think of this book, other than my friend erika read it, liked it, but remarked that it didn't really seem YA.

to which i agree to certain extent. the writing is lush and descriptive, slow moving and delicate with the details. there's an element of remove though, from cameron, and that plus the pacing make it feel more like a new-adult/adult book. and yet i can see teens with a love for words loving this book.

the thing that surprised me the most was that yes, this is man. i did not know what to think of this book, other than my friend erika read it, liked it, but remarked that it didn't really seem YA.

to which i agree to certain extent. the writing is lush and descriptive, slow moving and delicate with the details. there's an element of remove though, from cameron, and that plus the pacing make it feel more like a new-adult/adult book. and yet i can see teens with a love for words loving this book.

the thing that surprised me the most was that yes, this is a story about a girl who kisses her best friend the night her parents die. but cameron never really questions that she is a lesbian. she knows she likes girls, and really, she doesn't have that big of a problem with it. she is aware that other people would. this is really a story about how people manage to mess people up while trying to make them better.

(mark's story was heartbreaking.)

sure, there's aunt ruth who moves in with cameron and her grandmother after cameron's parents die, and yes, she's born again, but she actually isn't a crazy bible thumper. she seems happy. she has a horrible disease (NF) and she still looks "put together smartly". when the truth about cameron's sexuality comes out, ruth does what she thinks is best - with the advice of her pastor and the town claiming that cameron was out "corrupting" youth. i also appreciated the struggle cameron had at Paradise, between the mutual messages of "hate the sin, not the sinner" and the knowledge that she was a lesbian. this wasn't a brain-washing place with people speaking in tongues and receiving testimony. there was no re-baptizing or really, much mention of hell. Paradise isn't like the documentary "Jesus Camp".

instead, danforth treats both sides with a fairness and a gentleness that surprised me. yes, i thought the ending was a little abrupt. yes, i thought the name jane fonda was a little too weird. but as someone who is spiritual and religious and yet has issues with some of my church's stance on things, this was an absolute delight to read. so many questions, so many different truths and realities and escapes.

perhaps i understood lindsay more than some of the others (coley for example - which, how do you pronounce her name?) because i was the same age during this time period, but i lived on a coast, like lindsay. not seattle, not the birthplace of riotgrrrls, but the pacific all the same. and like irene, i went to an all girls boarding school where we wore pearls every time we dressed up. so all the music, the references, they made sense to me. they put me in cameron's world.

this book broke my heart, but in a good way, and i think cameron and pastor rick and mark and alex and jane will stay with me a long while. i highly recommend this book, especially for people that are interested in the big questions.

(and i agree with all the reviewers who said they wanted more, even though it's not a cliff hanger of an ending. you just end up loving these characters and want more.)
...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Dec 25, 2018 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbtqia, american-fiction, fiction, young-adult-fiction, christmas-2019-wish-list

TW: Depictions of homophobia, esp. in religious settings, including conversion therapy; parent death, too, but from the first sentence of the book, and more like a setting than an event.

I think this might be the most important YA novel I've ever read, for me at least. It is gut-wrenching (though uplifting by the end, like most YA novels), and I had a very difficult time reading it, perhaps partially because I was back in my hometown for the holidays while I was trying to read it, and I was pain ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 13, 2019 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-best-of-21st-c, coming-of-age, fiction, reason-atheism-and-religion

I really enjoyed this book. It was difficult to read at times, because it’s very emotional, and there are some dark emotions. And that’s for me, straight cis me, with parents who loved me unconditionally. I just kept thinking about my daughter; how could anyone do something like this to someone like her? Why wouldn’t they love her unconditionally, too? Maybe it’s harder to read this as a parent, because a lot of this book is about parents and guardians and the often flawed decisions they make.

Fr I really enjoyed this book. It was difficult to read at times, because it’s very emotional, and there are some dark emotions. And that’s for me, straight cis me, with parents who loved me unconditionally. I just kept thinking about my daughter; how could anyone do something like this to someone like her? Why wouldn’t they love her unconditionally, too? Maybe it’s harder to read this as a parent, because a lot of this book is about parents and guardians and the often flawed decisions they make.

From the blurb (and from the movie trailer, which I didn’t know anything about but which was mentioned in the blurb), one would think this is about a lesbian sent to a “re-education” camp. And it is. But that doesn’t happen until the second half of the book. I wasted a good deal of time trying to figure out which kid on the cover is Cameron, which is Coley, and is the boy Jamie or Brett orTy? Turns out the cover image is from the movie, and Jamie and Coley and Ty don’t even feature in the movie. (The kids on the cover are Cameron, Jane, and Adam. Chloe is Cameron, of course.)

The first half of the book is set in Miles City MT and the author grew up in Miles City (and is now married to a woman), so I think it’s safe to see his book as semi-autobiographical. It kind of bothered me that the “bad guys” of the story - Aunt Ruth and Lydia and Mrs Taylor - are all women, but if it’s semi-autobiographical (and that’s just an IF, I don’t really know) then it’s moreorless true and so that’s just how it was.

This is marketed as YA, but it doesn’t read like YA at all. It’s a coming-of-age story with a young protagonist, but it’s much slower and more complex and darker and introspective than most YA.

The scenes are often quite beautiful.

The weeds alongside the highway were partially gilded in death from the frosts at night—parts of them gold and ochre, dried and curled, but the rest of the weeds still green, hanging on, trying to keep growing.

Danforth has an observant eye for a scene, and she’s brilliant at conveying that same scene with words.

The last line is so haunting:

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.

Words I had to look up:
Strawberry pretzel salad - not a salad at all, more of a cheesecake made with crushed pretzel crust, sweetened cream cheese, and topped with strawberry jello & sliced strawberries. It Looks pretty good!

...more

1 like · Like · see review

Nov 02, 2016 Jaime rated it liked it

Shelves: read-2016, young-adult, bookclub

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 ...more

Like · see review

Mar 26, 2012 Agatha Donkar Lund rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, young-adult, lgbtqia, 2012

For once, deftly handled, heartbreakingly hopeful YA about young queer women. Cam is a delight, strong and and fierce and sure of herself, and I adored this.

Like · see review

Nov 18, 2017 Jamie rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-club

Quite lengthy and wordy for an anticlimactic and open ending. Otherwise, a different teen angst and finding herself story than usual.

Like · see review

May 05, 2021 Laurie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021

I really loved this book the characters are so good and there’s some great found family. Everything is presented with nuance. A great coming of age book.

Like · see review