The Miseducation of Cameron Post
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth is a book that I keep coming back to over and over again. It is a beautiful, sorrowful, and healing coming-of-age story featuring Cameron Post, a Midwestern girl who loses her parents and eventually feels that she has lost herself when she is sent away to conversion therapy after her best friend tells the church about her “sinful influence” over her. What I find so compelling about this book is Danforth’s ability to write emotion so raw. Cameron’s struggles, questioning, and betrayals are all written not to tell you a story but to make you feel that sense of loss she encounters as she experiences not herself changing, but her world changing as it reacts to her sexuality.
When Cameron is 12, she and her best friend Irene kiss the day before she loses her parents. This has always weighed on her as a sense of guilt, which is strengthened by the mega-church’s preachings that her religious Aunt Ruth has them join. As the years go by, Cameron meets Lindsey, a gay swim friend from Seattle, and uses movies that offer more freedom and exposure to same-sex relationships to escape Miles City, MT. Without spoiling all of the details, Cameron develops feelings for her best friend Coley, who she shares a summer of love with, but then when Aunt Ruth finds out she is sent to God’s Promise, a gay conversion therapy school in the middle of nowhere.
Cameron has to deal with the betrayal of people she trusted, and while at God’s Promise, she begins to develop shame that she didn’t have before and a loss of a sense of self which she must confront. While I know this all sounds a bit depressing, it is a beautiful read and does not give in to any gay clichés. I do not want to give the ending away, but in the end, Cameron ends up finding herself and begins a journey of healing. This is the perfect coming-of-age WLW book to read. The only problem is that once you read it, you will struggle to find a book that can hold a candle to it. All in all, you get a little bit of everything in this book: love, loss, religious trauma, and remembering what it feels like to be young and find yourself.
If you love the book and need more Cameron Post or are more of a movie person, the book was also made into a movie by the same name in 2018, featuring Chloe Grace Mortez as Cameron. Emily M. Danforth has a second book, Plain Bad Heroines, which also features multiple WLW and lesbian couples. I am currently working my way through this one and will be back with a review and recommendation soon!
WLW Flicks & Fiction 