The Miseducation of Cameron Post in Around the World in 80 Books

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

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

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!

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

Shelves: 2012, lgbtqia, young-adult, fiction

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.

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