Sunshine Revival - Challenge #2
Jul. 17th, 2025 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloomingsite Challenge #2
Tunnel of Love
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.
I feel like I'm full of sentimentality and passion for things I love, but lately I've been feeling weird; then this past weekend I travelled down to my uni with family and graduated (whole cap and gown ceremony, very tiring), so I've been putting off sunshine revival. And updating my dreamwidth in general. Oops! As a result, this is probably going to be short-ish and maybe not entirely coherent.
Currently, one thing I'm loving is re-reading one of my favourite books, the miseducation of Cameron Post. I first read it as a teenager one summer, and since then I've tried to read it most summers. It's a lesbian coming of age novel, set in a small town in Montana, and to me the book is the embodiment of summer, even though we follow Cameron across multiple years as she kisses girls and grieves her parents and grapples with a little guilt, maybe, and fall really hard for one particular girl, and eventually, gets caught. Cameron Post's first half is sticky summers and causing trouble and that feeling of teenage invincibility; the second half is more sombre, it's But I'm A Cheerleader in muted, desaturated shades. What strikes me in this reread is Cameron's voice as a narrator--she's funny and witty and full of personality that feels so real and specific. I feel like I really know her, or was her, and more than just feel sorry for Cameron, the author has a way of making you feel right with her. It's also fun to read a physical copy finally when for years I've been listening to the audiobokk (which is amazing), and realise how much of my writing quirks can be traced back to this book! All in all, if anything I've said has enticed you, I'd recommend giving it a read.
<3
Tunnel of Love
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.
I feel like I'm full of sentimentality and passion for things I love, but lately I've been feeling weird; then this past weekend I travelled down to my uni with family and graduated (whole cap and gown ceremony, very tiring), so I've been putting off sunshine revival. And updating my dreamwidth in general. Oops! As a result, this is probably going to be short-ish and maybe not entirely coherent.
Currently, one thing I'm loving is re-reading one of my favourite books, the miseducation of Cameron Post. I first read it as a teenager one summer, and since then I've tried to read it most summers. It's a lesbian coming of age novel, set in a small town in Montana, and to me the book is the embodiment of summer, even though we follow Cameron across multiple years as she kisses girls and grieves her parents and grapples with a little guilt, maybe, and fall really hard for one particular girl, and eventually, gets caught. Cameron Post's first half is sticky summers and causing trouble and that feeling of teenage invincibility; the second half is more sombre, it's But I'm A Cheerleader in muted, desaturated shades. What strikes me in this reread is Cameron's voice as a narrator--she's funny and witty and full of personality that feels so real and specific. I feel like I really know her, or was her, and more than just feel sorry for Cameron, the author has a way of making you feel right with her. It's also fun to read a physical copy finally when for years I've been listening to the audiobokk (which is amazing), and realise how much of my writing quirks can be traced back to this book! All in all, if anything I've said has enticed you, I'd recommend giving it a read.
<3
no subject
Date: 2025-07-19 02:16 pm (UTC)I have stronger ties to But I'm a Cheerleader as I experienced it back in my teen years, and the comparisons to its camp storyline were unavoidable when Cameron Post came out.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 03:08 pm (UTC)And The Miseducation of Cameron Post—yes. You’ve made me want to pick it up again immediately. That split you describe, between golden, rule-breaking summer and the quiet grey weight of consequence, is exactly how I remember it too. There’s such clarity in her voice, even when everything around her is murky. It’s the kind of book that burrows in and shapes you without asking.
Also: the joy of rediscovering where your own voice comes from? That’s pure magic.