The Miseducation of Cameron Post

C. S. Lewis once observed, "Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive". This book is a deeply moving coming of age story about a young woman struggling to understand and accept herself and her family's inability to allow her to do so. Cameron takes us on her hero's journey of sorts as she tells us about her life and struggles as a young lesbian woman living in rural Montana in the early 1990's. To her credit Ms Danforth does not cast the Christians in this story as mean cold-hearted bigots seeking to destroy gay people (although sadly, there is no shortage of such people in the world). Instead she presents them as people who genuinely care about Cameron and who operate from a sincere belief that they are working for her own good and that of her fellow "disciples" at Promise. She also illustrates the disastrous and harmful outcomes than can result from trying to force people to be who they are not. This is a book I wish many Christians so immovably opposed to accepting LGBTQ people as being who we are rather than some confused souls who are trapped in sin or "rebellion" against god, and that by choice.

READ THIS BOOK. I don't really know what to say about this book, except that I did not go into it with high hopes but I had a hard time putting it down and read it in a matter of hours.From the booklist review, anyone reading this should know at least the major plot points, but I apologize in advance if this review contains any spoilers.The book starts off with a punch to the gut, and immediately drags you into the rich and compelling story of Cameron Post. The night Cam kisses her best friend for the first time, her parents are killed in an accident. Understandably, Cam links those two events in her mind and is wracked with guilt and shame over her attraction to other girls, and tries to suppress it, but she can't. When she and her best friend fall in love, they are able to keep their relationship a secret until being discovered by the best friend's brother. Cam's Aunt Ruth then ships her off to a religious conversion camp to "pray away the gay".Cam's story is one of love, loss, confusion, religion, and healing, all bundled together. Danforth has a compelling way of weaving words that draws you in and creates an impact on the reader. The realities of growing up LGBT in a strict religious family are well fleshed out in the novel, through Cam's relationship with Aunt Ruth and the leaders and counselors at the conversion camp Promise, as well as in Cam's own internal struggle between what her fundamentalist religious community tells her and what she knows to be true.

This was an unbelievably good book. Engaging me as few others have in years, I have a new title to add to my list of most influential YA books.Intersectional, nuanced, realistic, poetic, crisp, and beautifully written, this book has it all. I have too many feelings to criticise it right now, though a hint of Cameron 's future would have been nice. I guess maybe the author could have been harsher on the evangelicals, but the book has a focus on compassion.Wise and pure and wonderful, this is perfect for anyone trying to understand queer people or teenagers, or even just find something good in life or themselves. It also beats the daylights out of John Green's work. There are no cheap jokes or held punches here: just art, truth, and beauty.

This book was recommended to me by one of my sister's friends. Which is truly surprising given he's not who you would typically envision reading LGBTQ young adult fiction, but it is refreshing to know that young men such as himself are doing so."The Miseducation of Cameron Post" was the sort of young adult fiction that makes you almost nostalgic for those tumultuous years of trial and error. This book, however, highlights a part of the teen experience that is often not spoken of and usually denied a platform. This book focuses on the additional challenges that our teen friends in the LGBTQ community can be faced with, and by doing so highlights the importance in recognizing these experiences as valid.Cameron, the main character, is someone you can identify with in many different ways. Her sometimes bad attitude towards her aunt, her crazy, stupid love for a beautiful friend, her love of movies and how they helped her escape, the excitement of sharing a passionate kiss...there's at least one thing that will remind you of your former self. I loved how real she felt. Cameron wasn't perfect, she wasn't necessarily confident, she wasn't the prettiest. She was what many of us feel we were during those years. It is hard to truly capture what it feels like being that age, mainly because with time all those life-shattering problems we had no longer seem important, rather benign if anything. But it's only because we have gained perspective and experience. It is important to keep in mind that at that time the seemingly minor problems we faced were very real, because usually it was the worst thing that had happened to you at that point. It is easy to dismiss the woes of teenagers because we know that their problems are trivial in the grand scheme of things. However, that doesn't change that for them it isn't trivial. We are limited by the experiences we have had, so you cannot discredit their experiences just because they still have, hopefully, a lot of living left to do.The most striking part of Cameron's story is when she is sent to a school that specializes in conversion therapy.  Highlighting this very real reality helps give the reader perspective on what it must feel like when your family and friends turn against you because of who you happen to be attracted to. Not everyone has this experience of being sent to conversion therapy, but it exemplifies the experiences that many LGBTQ teenagers face with gaining acceptance from their communities, society in general and with themselves. Overall an amazing read, and I loved that the story ended where it began.

If I were still a teenager, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is the kind of book I would have willingly traded my old, dusty, lifeline of a PC in for. It's a piece written by an author with a very mature writing style and an intimate understanding of the craft of atmospherics and character building. As a consequence, Cameron doesn't read as a character, but an overwhelmingly real someone from the very opening of the book. And boy, oh boy, does it read.Even though I'm from thousands of kilometers to the East of the US, I can initmately relate to the protagonist and the narrative's 90s nostalgia without the plot being predictable or boring. It's an honest to goodness representation of a young queer person, down to the mental health issues and problematic ways of regarding her objects of desire... Regardless, Cameron is a person before she's any other label and the novel is chock-full with the life experiences that comprise a childhood and early adulthood. Every scene is a masterfully portrayed, living, breathing snapshot with that beautifully haunting quality all great photographs and writings achieve... Whatever season it is you read it in and whether or not you were able to gallivant through summer as a kid, you're about to be taken on a trip down nostalgia lane in the blistering summer heat.It's funny, it's rewarding, it's fantastically written... It's an invaluable piece and I'm so sincerely happy that all the young folks of today will be able to read it growing up the way I wasn't able to. Don't be fooled though; just because I wish I had read it as a teenager doesn't mean the book isn't for adults. Like all great pieces of literature, this is something you'll keep coming back to and keep thinking back to.

"The night that Cameron Post's parents died, her first reaction was relief. Relief that they would never know that hours earlier she had been kissing a girl."Danforth's novel transports its readers into the world of Cameron Post in late 80s / early 90s Montana where she becomes increasingly aware of her nascent sexuality. Following the tragic deaths of her parents in a car accident at Quake Lake, Cameron's Aunt Ruth, a born-again evangelical Christian, becomes her legal guardian and Cameron's life goes off on a new and unwelcome tangent when her same sex attraction is exposed and she is shipped off to "God's Promise" for gay conversion therapy.Danforth creates a likeable and engaging character in the young Cameron and part of the novel's appeal lies in its ability to draw readers in and make them identify with her. It's at its weakest, however, when it lapses into rather rudderless narrative and acquires some of the qualities of a teen reader before finding itself again with its evocation of life at the "God's Promise" re-education camp and the memorable cast of characters who live there. On this basis, it's easy to understand why, in making a film adaptation of the novel, a much more pared down version of the narrative is offered which keeps its focus on the most important strand of the narrative and holds on to one of its greatest strengths - some compelling dialogue.In its conclusion, the novel is less abrupt than the film and arguably more satisfying as dramatic tension is built when Cameron and two of her fellow travellers plot their escape. There is real poetry in the final pages as Cameron confronts her past and contemplates both literally and metaphorically what lies beneath its surface as she comes to terms with who she is. At the same time, the novel tantalises and perhaps frustrates because the future that beckons is not ours to see...

Such a wonderfully well written book. The first half was beautiful, it made me feel like I'd been raised in Montana. I've never been to Montana. I actually have no clue where it is, beyond broadly within the US. I could not have grown up somewhere more different to this place, and yet the descriptions, the warmth.... Wow.The book overall was incredible as far as dodging tropes. Almost every time I expected it to zig, it zagged, as far as characters and development. It never really villainised anyone for what they did, and I appreciate that. It was such a caring portrayal of how most people don't deliberately seek out ways to do harm without reason - most of the time we're simply trying to help, without seeing that what we'll only make it worse.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a real eye-opener of a book. I’ve always known that the LGBT community have a hard time of things but what Emily Danforth has done is written a story that shows the truly insidious nature of what some families will do to make sure that their child stops ‘being gay’.Whilst I enjoyed The Miseducation of Cameron Post I did find the story quite slow paced. It took me much longer than it normally would to read the whole book.I would recommend this story though. It really does make you aware of how much being a lesbian or being gay is still seen as a negative thing in middle-America.The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth is available now.

Sad but wonderful, and so so important. The writing is beautifully nostalgic and really transports you to Montana in summertime. Danforth's writing style is so visceral and impactful.There is a graphic scene of self-injury in the book that I would urge readers to be aware of before reading.