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Title: The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Author: Emily M. Danforth
Published On: February 7, 2012
Started Reading On: July 21, 2018
Finished On: July 23, 2018
Average Star Rating: 3.98 out of 5 stars
My Star Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
My Thoughts (Spoilers)
This book was so good, I loved seeing Cameron go through the process of thinking her liking girls is bad to realizing it is okay.
Cameron was on of my favourite characters that I have read in the contemporary genre. She relies very much on humour and sarcasm to hide her feelings and she very realistic in the process of figuring out her sexuality, and was really seen growing confident in a family and location that doesn't allow her to feel that way.
I think it was interesting to have the first half of the book going through the moments of Cameron's childhood after her parents died, allowing us to see how she handles the loss, and her realizing more and more that she is attracted to girls. Her having a fling of sorts with her best friend Irene before her parents died, and how the friendship died because she couldn't handle her emotions. She meets Lindsey and really realizes that there is more to being gay and it is okay outside the town she resides in, and with Lindsey, she creates a friendship. She becomes the gay friend to Jamie and does drugs with him, while fawning and ends up having sex with Coley, making shit hit the fan with how the story goes.
Cameron really goes this, and ends up being sent to a conversion therapy camp, and when she is there, she is hit with the insightful realization that, they cure the people by making the gays hate themselves to the point they want to change, and she wants to be herself.
Don't get me wrong, this book is kind of sad, within all the fun, happiness, of Cameron finding her people. It talks about how much homophobia really harms people, especially in regards to parents pushing the whole, 'being gay is a sin' thing, mostly seen through the very painful scene with the character Mark. (Trigger warning for self harm for that scene). Which was interesting, I guess.
However, it was nice to see Cameron, finding good things within the bad, like becoming friends with Adam, a two spirit native american, and Jane, a lesbian who grows weed for the people to smoke. They are constantly making jokes and poking fun at each other, And that was the most wonderful part of the book.
Last note, her Aunt was very, I don't know. I am not really a fan of her. However, Cameron's Grandmother, was interesting I have to say.
“Maybe I still haven't become me. I don't know how you tell for sure when you finally have.”
“I felt all the ways in which this world seemed so, so enormous--the height of the trees, the hush and tick of the forest, the shift of the sunlight and shadows--but also so, so removed.”
“But there was a fire waiting. And there was a little meal laid out on a blanket. 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.”