This book is phenomenal. It is extremely well-written and Danforth’s use of imagery truly takes you through the book, into the landscapes of Montana. Would highly recommend to anyone

I watched the film of this a few years ago, and I do think I probably went about it the wrong way round, as I just couldn't seem to get invested in the book.

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

Thank you for providing access to this book. I'll be reviewing/featuring this book separately from NetGalley as I have purchased a copy.

I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long after seeing the film when it came out, but I never got around to reading it until now. I’m so glad I decided to read it because this is such an important book with themes that everyone should know about!

I really liked that the book starts from when Cameron is a child, and she’s already starting to experiment and discover her sexuality when she kisses her best friend. It was interesting to see her sexuality develop from a young age; in a lot of YA books, people only start to realise something is different about them when they’re a teenager. But for Cameron, she grew up with it being a normal part of her identity and she was pretty self-assured—even if she did have to try and hide it from everyone else who considered her same-sex attraction a “sin”.

Then the second half of the book introduces us to the setting of the conversion therapy camp called “God’s Promise”. We see the treatment of these teenagers by adults who want them to strip away their “same-sex attraction disorder”. Later on, after something happens to one of the “disciples” and people come to inspect the place, they ask if they trust the care that they’re under, and whether any of them are being emotionally abused. And Cameron’s response will always stay with me: “How is programming people to hate themselves not emotional abuse?”

As well as the important themes that arise from this book, it also has some wonderful friendships and a lot of great representation, including disability and someone who identifies as two-spirit.

The reason I’ve knocked a star off is because it sometimes felt a little long with some things being described in so much detail, or even whole elements that didn’t seem too important to the story. But then again, since watching the film adaptation again and seeing that they didn’t include any of these details at all, I realised the book’s detail helped round out Cameron’s character so we truly cared about her.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and there’s a reason why some people are beginning to consider it a modern classic!

Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

Warm, vividly detailed YA - I loved how slow it was, and the sense of place, and how grounded it felt in the idea of wider queer lives and community despite being about one teen who is very isolated from that community for most of the novel, and I loved its handling of grief. Highly recommended - I wish I'd read it sooner. The conversion therapy material, while (correctly!) harrowing, is really only about a third of a long (for YA) book, and very much a part of a story rather than its entirety.

Read Jan 19

I wanted to like this book much more than I actually did. I can’t deny that it is important in showing how anti-gay attitudes harm teens and that conversion camps are dangerous. Content warning related to this of a child badly self-mutilating himself due to the teachings of the camp.

It was incredibly well-written and detailed, and the characters were all well-rounded but overall, I wanted less and more at the same time. Less laggy pacing and over-describing, less drug stuff – call me a stick in the mud but I’m anti-drug. My main ‘more’ wish is more of an ending. It just stops. I also wanted to see Cameron having a happy, open relationship.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

I went into The Miseducation of Cameron Post with little to no knowledge of the book other than CJ Skuse’s assurances of its awesomeness. She was completely right about it.

I’m not really sure what I expected from The Miseducation of Cameron Post, but the first part of the book still managed to surprise me: I was not expecting Cam’s story to start when she was twelve and it put me off a little initially, but now I’m glad that it did. By half-way through the novel I realised how important it was to have had the novel start so early; it gave a resonance to her later relationships and really let the reader know that no length of time at Praise was going to ‘cure’ Cam of her feelings. That is who she is.

On the subject of the quest to rid Cam of her feelings, I was surprised at how strong the religious element of The Miseducation of Cameron Post was. I didn't realise that the American Midwest were quite so strict in their beliefs. The way that Cam’s sexuality was viewed by the people from her town and the leaders of Praise made me so unimaginably angry. I mean, I've always been in favour of gay rights, but I guess I didn't really realise how strongly I felt about it until I started to care about someone (albeit fictional) who was suffering because of sheer ignorance and stupidity.

The way that they believed that homosexuality is caused by reversed or confused gender roles or stemmed from childhood incidents in a Freudian way was simultaneously fascinating and horrifying. I know that they genuinely believed that they’re were trying to help, as did Aunt Ruth, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how they could. It really made me think a lot and I still haven’t gotten it out of my head.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is quirky, moving, thought-provoking and I loved every page. Emily M Danforth is a serious new talent in YA.

This is an engaging written story albeit with a few minor niggles. The pacing is a little off - not much, but enough to cause a midway bog with nothing much happening and little forward motion. However, the writing is so enjoyable - the author's ability to evoke the time period, the setting and the emotional nuances of teenagers is excellent - that the slow build up to the real action of the plot is barely noticed so immersed and invested are you in Cam's world. The issues are handled with sensitivity and sass and the character of Cam is relatable and believable. On the negative side, I dislike the dead parents trope and felt this story could've been told without that element. Also the ending was disappointing as the resolution wasn't the one I'd been hankering after.

This one hit me right in the feels. And since I enjoyed the movie so much I decided to pick this up. It was okay. I have to say I enjoyed the movie more, whether it was the writing style wasn’t my fave or what. I enjoyed the characters though and will eventually give it a reread.

Cameron Post thinks her life is good. But then her parents die. She thinks her life is getting better. But then she’s found kissing another girl and sent to a conservative boarding school. And in there she finds friends again. She finds happiness. She finds herself.

CW/TR: Self-harm, attempted suicide, homophobia.

So like, I liked this book, really liked it, like a 4, 4.5 out of 5 (stars) – which sounds great, right? It’s just the pacing was very slow – which made me drop it down to 3.5. Doesn’t mean I didn’t like it, I did. It was just a bit slow. It also doesn’t mean it isn’t worth 4 or 5 stars, it probably is. And I went back and forth, trying to figure out if I should rate it 4 stars, because I did like it, but did I enjoy reading it enough to give it 4 stars? No, I felt 3 stars while reading it.

But I’m not for slow books. I’ve known about this book for years but I didn’t know much about it? I thought it was only about a girl in a small town (the original cover shows that) and then maybe she falls in love. I didn’t expect a book like this. I liked that the story started when Cameron was young. I think it’s so important to show that girls liking girls and boys liking boys and everything happens when they’re young and we have to let kids know that it’s okay to feel that way.

The formatting on this e-arc was off but it did make me change my kindle font to all bold – I think it’s sort of easier on my eyes? Or it’s just nice to look at? Well, I tried using the nicer fonts, but it got difficult to look at. This wasn’t the reason why I marked it 3 stars, if you wanted to know. Just annoyed that the fonts were like this.

I loved Cameron from the start. I remember I liked Adam when we met him but Jane took a while to like. I think that’s because she did put up a wall and Cameron and the reader had to learn to trust her. But then I started to love Jane!! But those adults (at the camp and Ruth) ????!!! ANNOYED ME ENDLESSLY LIKE JUST THROW THEM ALL INTO THE ABYSS WHERE THEY BELONG. Like how do you profess being a good person and wanting to look after teenagers (who really really need that because they’re in that spot where they do start to question themselves AND IF you’re an ass who decides to make them start hating themselves, guess what they’re gonna do!!

Also, you should watch the movie because it’s excellent!!

Sadly, this was a read I really didn't enjoy. It follows Cameron, who moves in with her Aunt and Grandma after her parents die. When they find out the truth about her sexuality, Cameron is sent off to this religious boarding school. The story pacing moved far too slowly, it wasn't until 54% through that the action started to happen. There was a lot of backstory and multiple info-dumps, that didn't keep me fully invested. Overall, I won't be re-reading!

A decent contemporary story. A good relationship plot with good character dynamics but not quite enough growth/development. Would recommend.

A little too slow paced for me but will still purchase for the library due to the content being relevant and interesting to some of my student readers.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a free ecopy for review.

I'm not sure how I feel about this?

I was so, so impressed with Danforth's writing - it was honestly amazing; extremely vivid and descriptive. It really made me feel like I was there with the characters experiencing the sticky boiling heat myself. The issues it discusses and the rep of LGBTQ and thoughts and ideas someone struggling with their sexual identity goes through were wonderful, I also think it was a great reflection of some of the struggles during that time (I can only speak from what I imagine.) I did love how Danforth described the conversion camp and how little help there was for people stuck inside them and the power of living in an environment like that can affect and alter a person. My issues with this were I found for me personally it was too descriptive and very character driven, which I've found isn't something as a reader preference I enjoy if I don't super emotionally connect to the characters - which I didn't. Although, I will admit the characters all felt super real and fleshed out and none of them felt similar or flat. I also would have liked more time actually spent in the conversion camp instead of the events leading up to it. But overall - I think this is a really important story and topic and beg more people to read and share it. I'm excited now to watch the film and see how it compares.

It's not often that you'll stumble across a book that you can literally feel changing your life. An absolutely gorgeous book that made me feel so strongly, I didn't even know it was possible for a book to do that. Equally loved the parts from Cameron's past and present, and the relationships she builds with the people of God's Promise are reassuringly wonderful. A must read for anyone, really. Now excuse me, I have to go and reread it immediately.

For a YA contemporary, this book is too long for me. The pacing was too slow, so it dragged for me. I wanted to love it - especially as it's rare to find lesbian characters in YA - but it was pretty average.

Hours before her parents died, Cameron Post was kissing a girl. She can't help but feel relief that they will never know.
Cameron's religious aunt Ruth moves in, meanwhile Cameron grows close to the beautiful Coley Taylor. Their relationship becomes intense and Cameron struggles to keep her feelings inside.
When Aunt Ruth finds out about Cameron's sexuality, she takes decisive action.

My main takeaway from The Miseducation of Cameron Post is that it was really slow. Really. Slow.
There was so much back-story, which in a way was nice, but not much happened and it was over 400 pages. I didn't think it needed to be that long and it dragged a bit for me.
I liked Cameron as a character. I felt sorry for her losing her parents so young and then her aunt reacted badly to Cameron being a lesbian.
Jane and Adam were interesting characters. I liked Cameron's interactions with them.
I didn't mind the writing style but I wasn't gripped.
I thought Cameron's sexuality was handled well and it was probably my favourite aspect of the book.

Overall this was an enjoyable, but slow read.