Malinda Lo reviews Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth

The Miseducation of Cameron Post has the memoirlike feel of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. While it’s being published as a young adult novel, Cameron Post is certainly also meant for adult readers. The historical specificity makes it especially meaningful for those of us who came of age before the Internet, before Ellen DeGeneres said “Yep, I’m gay,” when lesbian kisses were glimpsed in secret, by watching and rewinding Personal Best on VHS.

Danforth’s writing style is multilayered in the best way, with a gradual, deliberate accretion of details that creates a resonant whole. This is a book that invites lingering — and not only on the scenes of young love that might become dog-eared at the library — though, if you’re like me, you’ll speed through the story, unable to tear yourself away from Cameron’s meticulously rendered life.

Describing a book as “important” is a compliment, but it can also seem to detract from its literary quality — as if its significance is more about its message than its sentences. The Miseducation of Cameron Post is indeed an important book — especially for teens growing up today in communities that don’t accept them for who they are. But it is also a skillfully and beautifully written story that does what the best books do: It shows us ourselves in the lives of others.

4 Notes/ Hide

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