The Miseducation of Cameron Post ~ Emily M. Danforth

For our monthly challenge this year the theme for June was LGBTQ+ and I wanted to read something new. Luckily I have had a copy of The Miseducation of Cameron Post on my shelf for quite a while now and have just never got round to picking it up. Now felt like the perfect time. 

Danforth’s coming of age novel follows Cameron Post from the age of 12 to around 17 and is narrated by Cameron in first person at some point in the future after the events that occur within the book. The book starts during the summer that Cameron’s parents die in a fatal car accident. This happens to be the same day that she kisses a girl for the first time. Her best friend Irene. Whilst having to deal with the grief of losing her parents she is trying to combat an overwhelming amount of guilt. Cameron believes that her ‘sinful’ actions could be to blame. To make matters worse she ends up living with her grandmother and very conservative aunt Ruth. Exploring her feelings very much in the privacy of her own bedroom through rented video to try and catch glimpses of LGBTQ+ content. Something that wasn’t very easy to find considering this book is set in the 90s. After falling in love with another girl who soon becomes consumed by guilt reveals their sordid affair to her family/church. Aunt Ruth is horrified and sends Cameron to God’s Promise, a religious boarding school to ‘cure’ Cameron of her homosexuality.

The book is split into three parts and I would have to say that my favourite part was definitely the third and final part which depicted Cameron’s time at God’ Promise. Although this is probably the most harrowing part of the story where you learn how these teenagers were supposedly ‘cured’ of their own sexuality. They are taught to hate themselves and fear what will happen to them if they aren’t willing to change. This was really hard to comprehend as someone who hasn’t had to face such strife.

I will be honest and say that I massively struggled to get past the 100-page mark. Cameron’s narrative is very very over detailed which I think made the book unnecessarily long. The way in which Cameron recounts these events makes her seem very detached from what was happening at the time. Other than that I think this book is very well written. A self-assured story that is well developed. It showed how many teenagers struggled with their sexuality without having texts like this to read, especially if you came from a conservative background like Cameron.

Although many LGBTQ+ books I had previously read were a bit more out and proud in nature I loved this more introverted approach to such an important topic. I gave The Miseducation of Cameron Post a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5 stars.

M🌸