 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2012
GENRE: Contemporary , LGBT Fiction
PAGE COUNT: 470
FORMAT: Paperback
AVAILABLE ONLINE
: amazon
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After reading the above lines from the synopsis of this
book, I was totally sold and bought it . But
when it came to actually reading it, I was a bit apprehensive. To be honest ,it belongs to a genre that I don't necessarily enjoy . In
addition to that, it is a thick dense book with pretty small fonts . After
being on my TBR pile for a long time, I finally decided to pick it up and I am glad I did.
The
story begins when Cameron Post is 12
years old and her parents die of an accident. The first instinct when she hears
this terrible news is Relief that her parents would never know that she had
been kissing a girl lately. With this guilt in her heart, she starts to live
with her conservative and religiously devout grandma and aunt in Montana. There
she explores her sexuality through a couple of intimate encounters thereby
trying to figure out her sexual inclination. In the meantime, she befriends a
beautiful girl named Coley Taylor. Soon
people find out about this intense
friendship and subsequently Cam is sent to a conversion therapy/ center of
sorts where she along with her other inmates try to figure out their “true
self”.
The writing was beautiful and heavily
descriptive which made this an extremely slow read for me. Infact, parts of the story that I learnt from the synopsis was not even covered by the time I was halfway
through the book . Each and every
activities and events were vividly described. For instance, the first chapter has a description of summer in such a way that I literally started sweating while
reading it . LOL 😄
Although
this helped in visualising the narrative, after a point I got extremely annoyed and
bored. I thought the story was not moving at all. I was reading pages and pages
of descriptions of mundane stuff like - the way a certain hat looks on grandma’s
head or some description of an abandoned
hospital or how teenagers try to find
ways to consume alcohol and smoke like crazy etc.
Due to the beautiful writing style , I somehow
managed to get through to the middle section of the book. But this was
gradually starting to get on my nerves. Fortunately, things started to pick up
in the second half.
The
second half was incredible . It tried to tackle some serious hardhitting issues
like sexuality, identity crisis and
parental pressure . The story started to pick up the pace and I almost
flew through it. The narrative also became a bit light hearted despite of those hard hitting subjects . We saw a funny Cameron
and a few new characters were introduced who were so witty that they
successfully made the rather emotionally
driven second half bearable to read.
I
had issues with the ending though . Since there was so much build up in the
first half , I expected the ending to be explosive . Unfortunately the climax
did not live upto my expectations.
Cameron
as a character was extraordinary . We see her
grow with every incident she
encountered . In the first half of the book , she seemed naive and was dominated by pretty much everyone. But as the story progressed,
she showed some major character growth by becoming strongly determined. I liked her because not once did she make me
feel pity for her . She never expected the reader to feel bad for her. Even
when she was going through multiple unrequitted love situations during her
teenage years, she held it together . Sometimes , I wondered if I were in her place, I would have cried
buckets . But that doesnt mean she was never hurt. It is just that she had good
coping mechanisms and probably had the understanding that life is all about moving on.
The
thing with such huge hefty books is that
we see a lot of characters . Every character was well fleshed out . After
finishing the book, I was able to remember all the side characters . This shows
how impactful they were. Unfortunately I
was disappointed at the end because the
author gave all these characters quiet an abrupt ending. All her encounters
with the different girls and boys were
elaborately explained. I kind of felt betrayed that after investing so much time,
I was not told what happened to them at the end. 😏 😐
As
far as the conversion therapy/ center is concerned , it surprised me the most.
When I read the synopsis at the back of this book, I kind of imagined this centre to be praticing some
gruesome and harsh techniques to cure the so called “ homosexual sickness” of
Cameron. I was surprised to see that these
guys whole heartedly beleived in what they were doing . They were simply trying to help the people without any forceful
imposition . Their reasonings also didnt seem irrational and their methods were quite
positive . It seemed like something a
good psychiatrist would do which was never brutal or judgemental in any way .
The
sex and other intimate scenes were
aesthetically written. Hence it didnt make me cringe. The author has done a
good job handling such scenes without making it creepy erotic. Hence, young
adults and those readers who shy away from sex scenes wont have a problem
reading it.
The
book also lets us question the hypocrisy of our
societal norms . There is a portion in the book where a devoutly religious
character voices strongly against homosexual acts saying that it is a sin as prescribed in religious texts . However, the same character indulges in
premarital sex (which is also a sin according
to the same holy texts) .
Also,
TRIGGER WARNING at Chapter 18, page 380 which had a graphic description of self
torture.
It is a slow read and people who like to
finish book at one sitting may find it a bit frustrating. In order to truly
enjoy this book, it is better to read during vacations and enjoy each and every
page .
Let
it absorb you.
Immerse yourself in the life of Cameron Post
regradless of whether or not you are an advocate for homosexuality because it
not only covers sexuality but also
very realistically depicts issues of
teenage angst, self doubt , identity crisis and parental pressure which are
topics we must educate ourselves with.
RATING- 💗💗💗💗
(4/5)
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