Stars: 4.4/5 ★ | 88/100 | A
Review Summary: Young gay girls finally get the classic coming of age novel they deserve
Official summary:
“When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.
But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultra-religious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.”
Review:
As a realistic coming of age novel and not a fantasy epic, the plot isn’t much beyond the everyday life of a small town American teenage girl coming to terms to with her sexuality while having to hide it from almost everyone around her. The gay conversion therapy aspect does not begin until the halfway point, and the novel is roughly 110 thousand words. I feel the way the promotion of this book focused so heavily on the gay conversion therapy aspect did the book a disservice. For me and for other readers I have come across, it created the impression that gay conversion therapy would be the main plot of the book - so when it wasn’t, and didn’t occur until the halfway mark, it threw the pacing off. Once I flicked through the book and saw the visual divider for where the gay conversion therapy storyline began, however, I was happy to explore Cameron’s life now knowing how much longer I would be doing so until the plot shifted gears. While much of the first half may not be eventful, or even directly related to Cameron’s sexuality, I feel it was important to spend as much time as the novel did developing Cameron as a person so she wasn’t merely a victim of gay conversion therapy, but rather a gay teen with conversion therapy as part of her experiences navigating her sexuality. The book seeks to be much more than just a story of conversion therapy; it is very much Cameron’s story. She is a whole person, and not only does that make her a better character in a novel, but it also makes her an important character to readers as a vivid character not defined by or limited to her sexuality.
A 12 year-old character coping with the death of their parents throughout their teenage years could easily be the main plot of a novel. This novel already had Cameron’s sexuality as her overarching struggle and, as a result, I felt the death of her parents didn’t get anywhere near the amount of emotional attention from Cameron that an event that traumatic would actually engender in a child. That the death of her parents was included at all led me to believe they only died so it wouldn’t be them sending her to gay conversion therapy. The “evil stepmother” trope was born from the idea that a child’s birth mother would never treat her child poorly, so instead the story creator killed her and had the father’s new wife torment the children instead. Replacing Cameron’s parents with her Aunt Ruth, whom she barely knew before the event, felt like a similar ploy. By killing the parents Danforth avoided handling the difficult topic of parents who love their child sending them to gay conversion therapy as a misdirected act of love. Danforth didn’t owe us this narrative, but by not doing justice to the narrative of the death of Cameron’s parents either, it felt like she was dodging the topic rather than choosing a different direction.
Danforth has characterization skills well beyond those of a debut author. The characters were as vivid as biographical studies, full of the little details that bring a collection of words to life as people. The realness of all the characters made the telling of a simple story about real-life struggles all the more effective, all the more relatable for those who share Cameron’s struggles and all the more informative to those who don’t. The introduction of Adam Red Eagle and Jane Fonda in the second-half brought more diversity to the cast, and the strength of their friendship with Cameron was an uplifting end to a novel of her struggles.
I felt that the damage of gay conversion therapy was really only shown through Mark, he being an extreme case. Nobody else seemed to care much. I can understand the desire to present an ‘objective’ case of gay conversion therapy free of melodrama designed to sway opinion (as much as I wouldn’t have a problem with that anyway), but I didn’t feel that the stress and emotional damage such an environment would inflict on young adults was present in the characters who didn’t want to be there. They mostly just seemed annoyed to not be able to live their regular teenage lives rather than emotionally strained by the damaging concepts forced on them.
Danforth writes with a maturity not often found in the YA genre. While she doesn’t write in a lush, evocative style like Laini Taylor - a standout prose-crafter in YA - writing in a simple but engaging manner is just as difficult, if not more so. Danforth’s prose excelled in particular, for me, at creating atmosphere. Everytime I settled down to read I felt the environment of a hot, dusty small American farming city settle around me; despite the fact that where I live is absolutely nothing like that, and I have never even visited anywhere like that. The setting of Miles City, Montana, is author Emily Danforth’s hometown, and it shows in the intimate, effortless description of the city and its changing seasons, annual events, and the types of people who inhabit a place like Miles city. This is a phenomenal piece of literature in its own right, as a debut it’s a triumph.
Weaker points
Pacing (maybe)
Stronger points
Characters
Diversity/representation
Relationships
Themes
Prose
Setting
Atmosphere
Content/age appropriateness warnings: homophobia, drug use (weed), underage alcohol consumption, non-explicit sex, swearing, character death (only the parents), car accidents, self-harm/potential suicide attempt (not the main character)
Review Summary: Young gay girls finally get the classic coming of age novel they deserve
Official summary:
“When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.
But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultra-religious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.”
Review:
As a realistic coming of age novel and not a fantasy epic, the plot isn’t much beyond the everyday life of a small town American teenage girl coming to terms to with her sexuality while having to hide it from almost everyone around her. The gay conversion therapy aspect does not begin until the halfway point, and the novel is roughly 110 thousand words. I feel the way the promotion of this book focused so heavily on the gay conversion therapy aspect did the book a disservice. For me and for other readers I have come across, it created the impression that gay conversion therapy would be the main plot of the book - so when it wasn’t, and didn’t occur until the halfway mark, it threw the pacing off. Once I flicked through the book and saw the visual divider for where the gay conversion therapy storyline began, however, I was happy to explore Cameron’s life now knowing how much longer I would be doing so until the plot shifted gears. While much of the first half may not be eventful, or even directly related to Cameron’s sexuality, I feel it was important to spend as much time as the novel did developing Cameron as a person so she wasn’t merely a victim of gay conversion therapy, but rather a gay teen with conversion therapy as part of her experiences navigating her sexuality. The book seeks to be much more than just a story of conversion therapy; it is very much Cameron’s story. She is a whole person, and not only does that make her a better character in a novel, but it also makes her an important character to readers as a vivid character not defined by or limited to her sexuality.
A 12 year-old character coping with the death of their parents throughout their teenage years could easily be the main plot of a novel. This novel already had Cameron’s sexuality as her overarching struggle and, as a result, I felt the death of her parents didn’t get anywhere near the amount of emotional attention from Cameron that an event that traumatic would actually engender in a child. That the death of her parents was included at all led me to believe they only died so it wouldn’t be them sending her to gay conversion therapy. The “evil stepmother” trope was born from the idea that a child’s birth mother would never treat her child poorly, so instead the story creator killed her and had the father’s new wife torment the children instead. Replacing Cameron’s parents with her Aunt Ruth, whom she barely knew before the event, felt like a similar ploy. By killing the parents Danforth avoided handling the difficult topic of parents who love their child sending them to gay conversion therapy as a misdirected act of love. Danforth didn’t owe us this narrative, but by not doing justice to the narrative of the death of Cameron’s parents either, it felt like she was dodging the topic rather than choosing a different direction.
Danforth has characterization skills well beyond those of a debut author. The characters were as vivid as biographical studies, full of the little details that bring a collection of words to life as people. The realness of all the characters made the telling of a simple story about real-life struggles all the more effective, all the more relatable for those who share Cameron’s struggles and all the more informative to those who don’t. The introduction of Adam Red Eagle and Jane Fonda in the second-half brought more diversity to the cast, and the strength of their friendship with Cameron was an uplifting end to a novel of her struggles.
I felt that the damage of gay conversion therapy was really only shown through Mark, he being an extreme case. Nobody else seemed to care much. I can understand the desire to present an ‘objective’ case of gay conversion therapy free of melodrama designed to sway opinion (as much as I wouldn’t have a problem with that anyway), but I didn’t feel that the stress and emotional damage such an environment would inflict on young adults was present in the characters who didn’t want to be there. They mostly just seemed annoyed to not be able to live their regular teenage lives rather than emotionally strained by the damaging concepts forced on them.
Danforth writes with a maturity not often found in the YA genre. While she doesn’t write in a lush, evocative style like Laini Taylor - a standout prose-crafter in YA - writing in a simple but engaging manner is just as difficult, if not more so. Danforth’s prose excelled in particular, for me, at creating atmosphere. Everytime I settled down to read I felt the environment of a hot, dusty small American farming city settle around me; despite the fact that where I live is absolutely nothing like that, and I have never even visited anywhere like that. The setting of Miles City, Montana, is author Emily Danforth’s hometown, and it shows in the intimate, effortless description of the city and its changing seasons, annual events, and the types of people who inhabit a place like Miles city. This is a phenomenal piece of literature in its own right, as a debut it’s a triumph.
Weaker points
Pacing (maybe)
Stronger points
Characters
Diversity/representation
Relationships
Themes
Prose
Setting
Atmosphere
Content/age appropriateness warnings: homophobia, drug use (weed), underage alcohol consumption, non-explicit sex, swearing, character death (only the parents), car accidents, self-harm/potential suicide attempt (not the main character)
