I Am the Cheese
by Robert Cormier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert CormierEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-11
ISBN: 0375840397
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Book Reviews of I Am the Cheese
Book Review: Just Because You're Paranoid...
Summary: 5 Stars
Adam Farmer doesn't know who he is. He's suspected things weren't right since a frenzied midnight bus ride when he was three. In his father's desk, he finds two birth certificates for himself bearing different birthdates. Though his parents have told him they have no living family, he eavesdrops on his mother's phone call with a woman who refers to Adam as her nephew. As the discoveries escalate, so does Adam's paranoia. Things he had accepted before now seem suspicious - even treacherous - like his father's meetings in their basement with the mysterious Mr. Grey and the family's emergency "vacations" following whispered phone conversations. Realizing that Adam "knows," his parents take them into their confidence and reveal the dangerous secret that continues to dictate their every action and demand their constant vigilance.
Robert Cormier's "I Am the Cheese" (Dell Publishing: 1977) reinforces our right - indeed our obligation - to question authority. Cormier weaves a complex narrative in alternating bursts of first person narrative from Adam, third person observation that at times blurs with first person by revealing that Adam has unknowingly spoken aloud his private thoughts, and transcripts of probing interrogations that Adam is subjected to by a sinister man whose professional veneer thinly masks dark ulterior motives. The frenetic pace of Cormier's prose and the unpredictable narrative structure reinforce Adam's growing panic and uncertain grasp on reality. Adam alternately craves the dull comfort of his meds and seeks the harsh clarity of a truth too horrible to confront. Who is Adam Farmer?
Summary of I Am the Cheese
Adam's father is in hospital and Adam has set off to visit him. It's a long, cold journey; as he travels along, Adam gets tired, and to take his mind off his exhaustion, he traces the events that led up to his father being taken to hospital. He had testified against government level corruption and the family became the subject of a government-orchestrated protection plan. The journey is a kind of odyssey, a search - through the mysteries of the mind. Adam must unlock the past and really remember it if he is to survive.Imagine discovering that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and a new family history created. Suddenly nothing is as it once seemed; you can trust no one, maybe not even yourself. It is exactly this revelation that turns 14-year-old Adam Farmer's life upside down. As he tries to ascertain who he really is, Adam encounters a past, present, and future too horrible to contemplate. Suspense builds as the fragments of the story are assembled--a missing father, government corruption, espionage--until the shocking conclusion shatters the fragile mosaic. Young adult readers will easily relate to the shy and confused Adam, whose desperate searching for self resembles a disturbingly exaggerated version of the identity crisis common to the teenage years.
First published in 1977, I Am the Cheese provides an exciting introduction to psychological thrillers. This sensitive, emotional, subtly crafted novel by Robert Cormier (author of The Chocolate War) was a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, as well as a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. --Emilie Coulter
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