Joint book review: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M.Danforth

Welcome to our very first joint review here at Escape In A Book. Today we will reveal to you our thoughts on the young adult LBGT contemporary novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth.

Mari's thoughts: The Miseducation of Cameron Post was actually my very first LBGT read. I had such high expectations for this novel, that might have been the reason for my being let down. My biggest issue with The Miseducation of Cameron Post was the pacing of the novel. At times the story felt to slow for me and I was struggle to keep going. I blame the book blurb for contributing to my feeling of slow pacing. Why? Because something described in the blurb didn't happen to Cameron until I was halfway through the novel.

I very much enjoyed the first part of the novel, reading about Cameron's summer and first crush etc. I was there cheering on Cameron to get her girl! I wasn't too fond of the novels way of ending, I wanted to know what was in store for Cameron and her friends. It made me wonder if there is to be a sequel. TMECoCP is a story about growing up and being gay in the US in the 90's (and how it perhaps still is to this day) . Emily Danforth did a great job portraying the difficulties not to mention the horrors of good people trying to cure people from homosexuality. All in all this story is an important contribution to teenage fiction letting, but a bit to slow going for my taste. Before I end this review I would like to guide you to a very interesting article that Emily M. Danforth did for Huffington Post, it is well worth a few minutes of your time.

My rating of this book:

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Nina's thoughts: There’s really nothing I can say here that will do this amazing novel justice. The Miseducation of Cameron Post is an incredibly well written debut from Emily M. Danforth, with one of the most controversial plots I’ve read in a long time.

The scenes from Cameron’s childhood really set the mood for the rest of this book. We are lead through warm summer days in Montana, swimming at the lake, kissing in barns, renting and watching 99cent videos, living with a very religions aunt, and I felt like I was there with Cameron for all of it. I have to add that I loved the introduction from the author, telling us that she was born and raised in Miles City herself, because it really shows in how well she knows her small town setting.

The first chapters do an amazing job of describe summer crushes and first love, regardless of gender and sexuality. Cameron is a very conflicted girl, and her aunt Ruth does absolutely nothing to help with this. If you are religious, please don’t take offence from this, but Ruth is exactly the kind of person that makes me dislike religion to the point where I try to distance myself from it as far as possible.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post evoked so many strong feelings in me. I was pissed off beyond what I can describe at some of the things Cameron was put through, but there was also hope, friendship and romance, and I loved all of it. My only problem with this book is that I wish Cameron herself would have been a little more angry about her aunt’s attempt to “fix” her. I kind of felt like she just accepted the situation, and made excuses for it not being all bad, and that felt a little wrong to me.

Instead of me saying much more, buy a copy of The Miseducation of Cameron Post for yourself, then let me know what you think when you’ve read it. This is the kind of book that will inspire strong opinions and loud discussions, and hopefully remind us all to be a little more open and understanding to the people around us.

My rating of this book:

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This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and on-line book stores such as Amazon and The Book Depository (I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store does by the way have free shipping to about 100 countries.

Source:
Our copy was provided by HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.