"I told myself that I didn’t believe any of that shit, but there it was, repeated to me day after day after day. And when you’re surrounded by a bunch of mostly strangers experiencing the same thing, unable to call home, tethered to routine on ranchland miles away from anybody who might have known you before, might have been able to recognize the real you if you told them you couldn’t remember who she was, it’s not really like being real at all. It’s plastic living. It’s living in a diorama. It’s living the life of one of those prehistoric insects encased in amber: suspended, frozen, dead but not, you don’t know for sure."
I really liked this book, and writing up this review I had to amend my original rating - as is the sign of any good book that makes you think.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post was advertised as a YA novel, and maybe it is one, but I did not read it as such. Cameron is in her early teens when the story begins in 1989. What struck me from the outset of the story is how sensitive the narration was to the time it is set in. There are a lot of references to music and tv programmes of the time but they are not used to club you over the head and make you feel the time period. In fact, when we get to know Cameron and her family, the book very much made me anticipate what their day to day routines would have looked like before the narration tells us about it.
I guess the story resonated with me in that way because the fictional Cameron in 1989 is only a couple of years older than me. Like Cameron, I spent my afternoons roaming around with friends whilst my grandparents watched Perry Mason and Matlock. Anyway, this is probably where the similarities end, but to me it illustrates that The Miseducation of Cameron Post is not strictly a YA novel, but also one written for a generation of parents who may have had difficulties to deal with Cameron's generation, and my generation, growing up at that time. I will come back to this point a little later.
It's difficult to discuss the book without giving away much of the story, so if you don't want to read spoilers - stop here.
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Nuanced, realistic fiction that feels like the best books I discovered as a teen in the 90s - which were books written and marketed to adults. This is much more an adult novel than a YA novel in terms of its scope, although it's about a teen. A lot of that has to do with how it's written in hindsight. It takes a while to make its points, to describe things, and lingers on vague emotions rather than being a plot-driven, emotion saturated book. It works for me because it felt real and because Cameron is trying to get through her adolescence under a fog of unrecognized grief and guilt, and she's not sure who she is, but she's still following whatever arrows of instinct come her way. Actually, I think the narrative ends too soon. As readers, I suppose we are meant to imagine what happens, or grant Cameron her freedom in our minds.
