The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Originally reviewed on A Reader of Fictions: http://readeroffictions.blogspot.com/2012/09/review-miseducation-of-cameron-post.html

Alright, I can tell that this is going to be a tough review for me to write, so just bear with me. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about The Miseducation of Cameron Post, henceforth to be referred to as TMoCP. I mean, I do know that I liked it. I know that parts of it made me sad, and some made me laugh, and others made me want to throw the book across the room, all emotions that Danforth no doubt intended to elicit from me as a reader. Still, some elements of it, especially the conclusion will need to sit with me for a bit before I can really pronounce my feelings about them.

TMOCP differs greatly from any of the other lgbt ya books that I've read thus far in just how up front Danforth is about the sexual side of things. I was really surprised, since that tends to be sort of glossed over, though, to be fair, I haven't yet read a ton. Danforth does not shy away from anything, and the sexual experiences, while not graphic are definitely described clearly enough that the reader has a solid conception of what's going on. I really appreciated this frankness, especially since it fits Cameron Post's personality so well.

Speaking of Cameron, she's a marvelous character, sarcastic and with a powerful sense of self. That last may be an odd trait to attribute to her, since, through the whole book, she struggles with coming to terms both with her sexuality and her parents' death in a car accident. Despite her confusion over her feelings, she never really seems to doubt her core self, even if she's not entirely convinced how she feels about that core self. Though she questions whether her sexuality is 'right,' she never doubts her attraction to women or thinks that it isn't a part of who she is. I loved that, because so many YA heroines allow their doubts to overpower a sense of self.

Her personality, her responses to events, keep the painful portions from being too incredibly awful, because she's still the same Cameron Post. Though Cameron isn't a super chatty person, she has such a powerful voice that I just love. When backed into a corner, she tells people how it is; she confronts them with her own hypocrisy. When she goes off on someone in a long monologue, it is a thing of ranty beauty.

The other thing I just have to mention that made this book so strong for me is Danforth's descriptions of feelings. She really captures the craziness of how people, or at least women, think, the little confusions and doubts. For example, she mentions how in reaction to something, Cameron will feel sad, then feel angry at herself for being mopey, and then just feel sad again. These sometimes conflicting and spiralling strong emotions are so much how I really feel on bad days, and are so much more authentic and powerful than just saying Cameron felt sad. This same technique is displayed in the complex friendship between Cameron and Jamie, which I thought was very well handled.

At this point, you may be wondering about the relatively low rating, since all of that was rather a rave, especially for me. The book did feel a bit long, dragging in some sections, particularly most of the first hundred or so pages. Ironically, my other issue is the ending, which I thought felt rushed and unsatisfying. It's the kind of ending that doesn't tell you what happens to the characters at all, and I want to know badly. Perhaps the book had to end that way for some reason, but I'm not seeing it yet. As I said, I may need time.

Those concerns aside, I will definitely be recommending this book to pretty much anyone I can, particularly if they have interest in lgbt fiction. Though this will have meaning to only a couple of my readers, I still have to state for the record that I really wish we had read this and not Dairy Queen in our lgbt fiction week in my YA resources class in library school.