The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Starred review from January 9, 2012
In Danforth’s impressive debut, a teenage girl processes her sexual awakening as a lesbian against the backdrop of her parents’ sudden death in a car accident. Cam’s reckoning with her sexuality develops through a series of vignette-like early chapters that focus on the girls that come and go in Cam’s life—and there are several of them—creating narrative moments that will have teens rereading the sexy bits like an earlier generation did with Judy Blume’s Forever. The story is riveting, beautiful, and full of the kind of detail that brings to life a place (rural Montana), a time (the early 1990s), and a questioning teenage girl. Halfway through, the novel makes an abrupt turn when Cam’s secret is revealed, and her evangelical Aunt Ruth sends her off to God’s Promise, a residential school designed to help teens “break free from... sexual sin and confusion by welcoming Jesus Christ into their lives.” Danforth’s story gains even more complexity and dimension from this shift, further developing the political, religious, and coming-of-age themes introduced in the first half. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jessica Regel, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (Feb.) ■

March 1, 2012

Gr 10 Up-When 12-year-old Cam learns that her parents have died in a car accident, her first reaction is relief that they will never know that just hours before she was kissing her best friend, Irene. Shortly after the funeral, her conservative aunt moves to Miles City, MN, to help Cam's grandmother with the caregiving, but all the churchgoing and discipline they can marshal throughout Cam's teen years can't prevent her from exploring her sexuality further, finally falling for Coley Taylor, a "straight" girl who wants to experiment. When they eventually get caught, Coley tells all, blaming everything on Cam, and Aunt Ruth sends her niece off to God's Promise, a conversion therapy school and camp. It is here that Cam meets gay teens like herself, and she begins to deal with the guilt and trauma of her adolescence, not through the pious teachings of the camp but through the love of her friends. This finely crafted, sophisticated coming-of-age debut novel is multilayered, finessing such issues as loss, first love, and friendship. An excellent read for both teens and adults.-Betty S. Evans, Missouri State University, Springfield

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