Name: The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Rating: 4.027027027027027 (148 reviews)
ISBN: 9780062020574

Emily M. Danforth

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Nikas

She was beautiful. Everything in me wanted to kiss her, and at the same time it felt like everything in me was sick.

Fatima Anwar Kamal

The story of Cameron Post, a teen lesbian living in a conservative household in Montana and her struggles with identity, grief, homophobia and community.

—  This is such a bittersweet masterpiece! The most stunning coming of age book I've ever read.

A delicate exploration of identity and sexuality, in a slow placing, beautifully written way. It highlights family, friendship, love and community in a breath-taking way.

There's so much grief, so much sadness, so much inner turmoil but also so much love and hope in every page.

Part of the book takes place in a conversion therapy camp, so beware if that's something you can stomach. 

To borrow Mr. Knightley words, The Miseducation of Cameron Post... If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

The story of Cameron Post, a teen lesbian living in a conservative household in Montana and her struggles with identity, grief, homophobia and community.

—  This is such a bittersweet masterpiece! The most stunning coming of age book I've ever read.

A delicate exploration of identity and sexuality, in a slow placing, beautifully written way. It highlights family, friendship, love and community in a breath-taking way.

There's so much grief, so much sadness, so much inner turmoil but also so much love and hope in every page.

Part of the book takes place in a conversion therapy camp, so beware if that's something you can stomach. 

To borrow Mr. Knightley words, The Miseducation of Cameron Post... If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

A life changing read.

<3

heleen de boever

A Novel

Katherine Yang

So beautiful. A little meandering at times, but always real and genuine and heartfelt.

In the early 1990s, when gay teenager Cameron Post rebels against her conservative Montana ranch town and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.

The miseducation of Cameron Post

What i most loved about this book are the vivid rural descriptions and the thruthfulness of teenage thoughts and despair. The pacing is a bit off though, and the ending (built by 400+ pages of book) seemed abrupt and bland.

alma

when i was in the hospital they had us do this activity where we drew icebergs of ourselves and it really reminded me of this book. you know, where she does that. anyway. loveee this one.

Josefina

3.5
if there were a book that was a mix between this and Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the Universe that would certainly the perfect book for me. I liked this one because it seemed more realistic, but i wish the ending wasn't like that, i wanted to know more

Casey Stevens

I. Was not expecting the ending. Felt oddly at home in that world

Katharina Hoffmann

Next to books and reading, my other great love is cinema. Films have a way of showing you that nothing is mundane or unimportant, no matter how small or irrelevant it may seem. Maybe it’s because of that that I was able to appreciate and enjoy this book so much.

More than anything, The Miseducation of Cameron Post felt like a character study not only of Cameron Post herself but of Montana in the 1990s, of Miles City, of what it means to be a teenager and spend your whole life in a small rural town with all its traditions and invisible, indirect social rules everyone is expected to adhere to.

Given that this is very much an own-voices book, knowing that the author went through many of those things exactly as they are described in the book, makes this even more of a character study. It’s a study alright because the details of Cameron’s life are described so vividly, so minute, it feels like you are standing right next to her; no-, it feels like you have LIVED her life, or at least parts of it, so accurate, so painstakingly beautiful are Danforth’s descriptions. 

“I was attempting to sit Indian style in front of her, the brick patio hot, hot from the sun, burning my bare legs enough for me to change positions and pull my knees into my chest, wrap my arms around them. I had to squint up at Irene to see her, and even then it was just a hazy-dark outline of Irene, the sun a white gob of glare behind her head. “My mom should have died in 1959, in an earthquake,” I said, putting my hand flat on the brick, right in the path of a black ant carrying something.
“That’s not how you start it,” Irene said, letting one of her dangling flip-flops fall to the patio. Then she let the other flip-flop go, which startled the ant, causing it to try a different route entirely.
“Then you tell it,” I said, trying to make the ant climb onto just one of my fingers. It kept stopping. Freezing in place. And then eventually going around.”

I have seen others describe the writing as slow and if you are an impatient reader this might prove a challenge to you but I found it breathtakingly beautiful with an incredible eye for detail. Danforth has this wonderful talent of verbalising emotions I remember feeling and experiencing when I was Cameron’s age. It made my chest constrict, that’s how real and raw and vulnerable it felt. You can definitely tell that the author poured her whole soul into this. At times I thought I could smell the cheap beer Cameron and her friends were drinking, or the hay in the barns Cameron was hanging out at.

Knowing that many of Cameron’s experiences were the author’s experiences really solidified how I felt about Cameron and the portrayal of a gay teenager torn between finding herself and her identity, and her family and friends that keep telling her she is rotten to the core. I think Cameron is a very realistic and great voice for young teens discovering same-sex attraction, learning how other teenagers their age are coping with their feelings.

The beauty of this book is that Cameron isn’t defined by the fact that she is a lesbian. Danforth knows and understands that queer folk, our personality isn’t made up by our sexuality. It’s a part of us, yes, but we are much more and so is Cameron. She is a swimmer, a movie buff, a niece, an orphan, a granddaughter, a good friend, a small-town girl. She is all that and more. I completely believed in her; she was authentic and nuanced and her thoughts and reactions rang true.

And even though we get this very atmospheric, very on-spot read of what summers in a small town in the Midwest must have looked like in the 1990s, this mood is contrasted with heavy external and internal(ised) homophobia, with conversion camps and the dreadful things people say and do to queer children in teens in the name of God 

This is a book for lazy summer afternoons, for reading at the public swimming pool, for taking with you on a picnic, for reading in a field of sunflowers, it’s a book as much for the heart as for the soul and if you can be moved, then you will be moved by it. It might not be perfect, but it’s a coming of age novel that is undoubtedly superior to many currently being circulated and its unique perspective and true-to-life narrative make it a literary treat.

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The acclaimed book behind the 2018 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning movie "LGBTQ cinema is out in force at Sundance Film Festival," proclaimed USA Today. "The acerbic coming-of-age movie is adapted from Emily M. Danforth's novel, and stars Chloë Grace Moretz as a lesbian teen who is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after she gets caught having sex with her friend on prom night." The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and provocative literary debut that was named to numerous best of the year lists. 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 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, and Cam becomes an expert at both. Then Coley Talor 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, 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 quite sure who that is. Don't miss this raw and powerful own voices debut, the basis for the award-winning film starring Chloë Grace Moretz.

Jimena Vázquez Oliver

I just found it overall quite slow. I also didn’t like the non-ending. But parts of it did get me all in my feels.

Jelke Lenaerts

This book has trigger warnings for homophobia, drug use, suicide and self-harm (explicit).

Ugh, I love this book. It was just so wonderful. The book did have a lot of hard hitting moments but it never really left me heartbroken. I really loved Cameron and being able to follow her story. She is a very interesting character and the journey she went on throughout this book was even more interesting. You truly don't get the full perspective of her growth until the very last scene, which makes it ever so impactful. This book won't be for everyone as it is pretty slow. Not a lot of exciting things happened, especially considered the lenght of the book. That was one of the main reasons I loved this book though. Day to day life also isn't full of exicting things. The slower pacing made everything just feel very realistic and made it easier for me to relate to Cameron, even though we have almost nothing alike. I just really loved this book and had a hard time putting it down. Every time I picked it up I was completely sucked in and just wouldn't let me go. I also liked the way it ended but I would die for a direct sequel to this book. I mean, I'm pretty satisfied with the way this ended but it's quiet an open ending and I think what comes next could also be very interesting and I would love to read that.

ericaa joycee

"Maybe I still haven't become me. I don't know how you tell for sure when you finally have." 

I used to despise this book when I turn to my shelf because it reminds me about how slow it was when I first tried reading it and I completely gave up. However, I recently tried listening to an audio book while reading which helped a lot. It turned out to be an amazing piece. A coming of age story that is unlike others. The characters felt so human. It deals with faith, beliefs, and discovering your true self. Overall, I definitely recommend this!

Erin Pitstra

"Maybe I still haven't become me. I don't know how you tell for sure when you finally have." 

I was very excited to begin reading this. The synopsis sounded interesting. It was a contemporary, my favorite genre to read. And I loved Cameron as a character. I thought she was realistic and relate-able. And her journey was something that people still deal with today. 

This wasn’t a crazy, action packed fantasy novel, so it didn’t need an extravagant plot to follow. But I felt like there wasn’t a plot to follow in the first half of the book. It felt jumpy for most of the book, not as much near the end though. I also felt like the story just dragged on, like some stuff was kind of unnecessary. 

It took me a while to finish this book because I just couldn’t seem to get into parts of it. But I very much wanted to finish it because i had heard such great things about this books, and it had such great reviews. I am glad I finished it though! I loved the writing, and it was an enjoyable read that wasn’t super complicated. I appreciated that.

Emily C Peterson

This was way too long, and the ending was extremely anticlimactic

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

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