I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier

Read For: YA lit class
Rating: 3.6

I have read two other Cormier books, The Chocolate War and After the First Death. Cormier is renowned as an important YA author, but my opinion is that he is a bit overrated. He writes a lot of violence and perversion, which I do not particularly enjoy. However, reluctant readers can probably relate to his young male protaganists, especially male reluctant readers.

I Am The Cheese was very similar to After the First Death. Cheese follows the story of Adam Farmer, a teenage boy who is riding his bike from Monument, MA to Rutterberg VT to visit his father and deliver an important package to him. Along the way Adam has to face many of his fears and persevere in his very long journey. These parts are told in first person narrative. Interspersed throughout are "therapy" sessions between A and T. It becomes clear that A is Adam, and we learn that T is really named Brint, who is presumably a psychiatrist treating Adam and guiding him to fill in the "blanks" in Adam's memory of his past. However, Adam starts to question Brint's trustworthiness as a shrink, and the reader does too. These parts are relayed as dialogue between the characters. Then, there are parts told in third person describing Adam's past life--these are the blanks that Adam is trying to fill in. We learn that Adam's family is a part of some sort of witness protection program, because his father testified against an "organization," allegedly the mafia.

The ending is similar to After the First Death, in that Cormier pulls a twist on the reader's perception of what reality is in the book.

This book held my attention and I think reluctant readers will probably enjoy it. There is not as much violence or perversion in this novel of Cormier's as I have found in others, so I would not hesitate to recommend it. I'm not sure about the teachability of it, though. I think I would almost prefer After the First Death because the switch in reality at the end is more severe and changes your entire perception of the novel, which I think would be a valuable tool when teaching students about voice and creative writing. Perhaps if I taught After the First Death to my students and some really enjoyed it, I would recommend Cheese for pleasure reading.