'The Miseducation of Cameron Post' by emily m. danforth

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The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a difficult novel to summarize.  So much happens between its covers: Cameron's recognition of her attraction (both emotional and physical) to other girls; a car accident that kills both of her parents when she's only 12 years old; the inevitable changes her life undergoes when her aunt Ruth becomes her legal guardian; the short, but intense, love affair with Coley Taylor, the town's golden girl; and Ruth sending Cameron to an evangelical boarding school that promises to change Cameron's sexuality.  In emily m. danforth's hands, it's a quiet, multi-layered novel where a young woman looks back over her teenaged years with the eye of someone who's not only older, but much, much wiser.  

If the idea that a teenaged girl coming out as a lesbian would be shocking, danforth set The Miseducation of Cameron Post in the early 1990s, before Friends featured Ross' lesbian ex-wife and her wife as something so normal, it bordered on the mundane.  That was a rarity on prime time television then.  So for Cameron Post to identify as a lesbian in 1991 in small-town Montana, it constitutes an earth-shattering event.

The novel is quiet in its tone, so when the big moments arrive, they land with the force of a thunderclap on a quiet evening.  Appropriately, those moments are also act as catalysts that force Cameron onto a path that isn't always of her choosing.  

The first two-thirds of the book outline Cameron's exploration of her sexuality from the first chaste kisses with her friend Irene to the furtive explorations with Lindsay, a fellow competitive swimmer to the explosive relationship with Coley that pulls the novel into the final third, which takes place at Promises, the evangelical gay-conversion therapy boarding school where Ruth ultimately sends Cameron to "cure" her, in an increasingly painful year as the leaders of the school take everything about their students and attempt to turn it into something evil and dirty.

It's the last third of the novel where the complexity matures.  One one hand, it's impossible not to feel indignant rage at the treatment of the students at Promises.  And yet...  To Lydia and Rick, the leaders, as well as the students' parents and guardians, Promises is what will save their children from eternal damnation.  That's what gives this part of the novel an underlying bitterness: they're doing it from a place of love, albeit a love that ultimately proves destructive.  It's not a love I recognize

The spare, wistful tone of the novel makes it difficult to even categorize The Miseducation of Cameron Post as a YA novel.  It doesn't feel like a YA novel.  It has more in common with so-called literary fiction (aka "adult fiction").  This isn't a bildungsroman, where Cameron is in search of herself. Cameron knows who she is, thank you.  She really just needs to find a place that will allow her to be.

For Cameron, "miseducation" applies to so many things.  One of the notable instances of Cameron's miseducation is Lindsay's insistence there is a narrow definition of a "real" lesbian.  Lindsay only spends summers in Miles City, and lives in Seattle the rest of the year.  Her sense of security (namely that she won't be sent to a gay-conversion school) allows her to freely express her sexuality with all the certainty that her way is "right."  The other, of course, is Promises and their assertions that everything about Cameron, from her "masculine" name to the way her parents raised her, are the external nudges that have made her a lesbian.

Give The Miseducation of Cameron Post a try.  This lovely, lyrical novel shouldn't be missed.

'Carry On' by Rainbow Rowell

Rowell, Rainbow. Carry On: A Novel. New York, St. Martin's Griffin, 2015. Print.

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Simon Snow is your average foster kid in England, shuttled from care home to care home during his summer holidays from Watford School of Magicks.  Did I say average?  Simon's one of the most powerful mages in England.  Or he would be if only he could get his magic under control.  Usually when Simon uses his magic, the spells don't work or they work too well.  He suspects his roommate at Watford, Baz, is a vampire, and Simon and Baz don't get along very well.  Needless to say, Simon's afraid that Baz is going to sink his fangs into his neck while he sleeps.  To add insult to injury, Simon believes his girlfriend, Agatha, has thrown him over for Baz.  His best friend, Penelope, constantly breaks school rules by sneaking into Simon and Baz's room.  On top of all that, there have been attacks by the Insidious Humdrum and strange dead spots have been appearing all over England where magic has just disappeared.

A series of strange events marks the beginning of Simon's final year at Watford, namely the fact that Baz's dead mother, Natasha, appears to Simon and delivers a cryptic message about the circumstances of her death for Simon to give to Baz; and an obviously ill Baz doesn't show up to the school until eight weeks into the term.  Once Baz returns to Watford, he, Simon, and Penelope team up to try and uncover the tangled mystery surrounding Natasha's death, while also trying to figure out how to defeat the Humdrum.

Rowell first introduced us to Simon Snow in her novel Fangirl, where it's a fictional fantasy series that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Harry Potter phenomenon.  Rather than write the book as the fictional author might have, Rowell has basically written a fan-fiction novelization of a fictional fantasy series she created.  Got that?  The Harry Potter influence is so strong in Carry On, that for the first third of the book, it's impossible not to mentally tally all the bits and pieces that are literary cousins to their Harry Potter counterparts.  Once Baz arrives on the scene, though, the story really picks up and races to the frantic and satisfying conclusion.

It's worth mentioning that although Rowell's magical world somewhat resembles that of Harry Potter, it diverges in significant ways.  Rowell's witches and mages live in the world of Normals, use smartphones, and create savvy Google searches.  Spells are common catchphrases or quotes from popular movies or songs, and witches and mages don't always use wands.

I was a little disappointed that Rowell didn't delve as deeply into the emotional lives of Simon or Baz as she did in her award-winning novel, Eleanor & Park.  Still, Simon and Baz's inner monologues probe their emotional attachments to each other and their families and friends.  As in her other novels, characters are allowed to unfold slowly across the pages of the book.  Character development is not rushed or forced, which also helps keep the reader on their toes as the resolution of the book approaches.

Readers of Rowell's other YA novels, Eleanor & Park, and Fangirl will probably love this novel.  So will readers of the Harry Potter series, if they can help themselves from comparing it to Harry Potter.  There's enough mystery to keep mystery fans engaged, too.