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I Am the Cheese

by Robert Cormier

3.65 · rating details · 4,946 ratings · 597 reviews

First published in 1977, "I Am the Cheese" provides an exciting introduction to psychological thrillers. This sensitive, emotional, subtly-crafted novel by the 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.

Paperback, 256 pages

Published September 11th 2007 by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers (first published 1977)

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Community Reviews

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Nov 20, 2008

Matthew rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Matthew by: my teacher

When I first saw this book, I thought it was strange book that no one would read and it was one of the books I just quote…dumb but Robert Cormier, who describes the protagonist, Adam Farmer, and his epic journey to see his father in Rutterburg, Vermont creates this amazing book -- all in flashbacks. He tells the story of Adam as if he was telling it himself.
Adam Farmer a normal kid in school, one day finds the need see his father in Rutterburg, Vermont. He abandons his mother and h...more

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Mar 13, 2008

Ives rated it

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Recommends it for: Anyone who likes Mystery Books.

Recommended to Ives by: Anyone who likes mystery books.

I Am the Cheese
Robert Cormier
220 pages
HarperCollins,1985
$7.99
ISBN Dell,1981 ISBN 0-440-94060-5.

Have you ever thought about living the life of a victim? Always having the fear of being heard or watched from left to right, up to down? A little taste in what the "bitter-sweet" life is here in this compressed, and brilliant book. The lives of a small, mysterious family of the Farmers (Adam Farmer: Student, son of Mr. & Mrs. Farmer) ...moreI Am the Cheese
Robert Cormier
220 pages
HarperCollins,1985
$7.99
ISBN Dell,1981 ISBN 0-440-94060-5.

Have you ever thought about living the life of a victim? Always having the fear of being heard or watched from left to right, up to down? A little taste in what the "bitter-sweet" life is here in this compressed, and brilliant book. The lives of a small, mysterious family of the Farmers (Adam Farmer: Student, son of Mr. & Mrs. Farmer) are on stake. This small family is being hunted down by the government. What do the officials want from this average family?

"A: I saw the Gray man get out of the car.
A: I could tell mother was dead with her head twisted in an abnormal angle.
T: What else did you see? You must tell me.
T: Tell me of this, Gray man. You must not retreat now.
T: You must not retreat now.
A: I would like to suspend now.
T: You must not. Tell me.."

I think that this is truly an amazing book. Personally being a fan of mystery, I enjoyed how Robert Cormier tosses in and stirs up the story with characters and conflicts to prevent the main character from getting what he wants. It seems as if the story is occurring or playing in my head, as I read each word. I picture the scenes go by and I visualize the characters in front of me, interacting before my eyes.
Adam Farmer, or so he was given this name, lives a normal life - goes to school, hangs out with his friend, goes home, and all that other stuff. However, his dad has been out of town and he hasn't gotten back. Adam recieves a notice that his dad is in the hospital. Worried and stealthily, Adam's guile sets him off onto a journey. He encounters many life-threatening experiences and obstacles that stand in his path. What he doesn't realize is that everything he's ever been told, or lived through, is a lie.
Personally, I think that people who enjoy reading and solving mystery books will love this book because this book has a variety of issues - from identity loss, all the way to helping/talking to strangers. Plus, the story and backgrounds of the characters are interesting as well. It's more fun than just solving any other puzzle; this one's been built incorrectly, and you're the one that has to rebuild it.(less)

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Jun 11, 2008

Kenny rated it

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I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier was a fantastic book because it totally caught me off guard until the very end of the book. The reason was that Adam, the protagonist, tells a story while he rides a bicycle in a circle. Adam is mentally ill and is put in a facility because Adam knows something that the government doesn't want him to remember. As a result, the government drugs Adam in the hope of erasing his memories. The ending is very surprising, so i do not want to ruin the book. The title is...more

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Mar 02, 2008

Hong Deng rated it

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Shelves: 9th-grade-in-class-books

This book is about a boy named Adam who was going on a personal journey of finding his real identity. He lived happyliy with his family until one day he became suspicious of his parents and later on found out that his real name is Paul Delmonte. His family had being disguised since he was litte to avoid terrorists. Not long after he found the truth, his parents both died from a car accident and he lost his memory and had to stay in a hospital to recover. The book is really interesting because...more

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Jun 11, 2008

Amanda B. added it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: readers who like twist

Shelves: advisorybooks-2007-08

I have first read this book in 6th grade, and I saw it on my book shelf and wanted to re-read it. I was very satisfied with the new outlook i had on this book. it is a story about a man named Adam who is in a battle to understand his identity and his life as a whole. it is such a moving story because you see the progression of what seems to be a normal story but has many little twist in it. The book starts with Adam on his bike riding towards Vermont to see his father. The book ends revealing th...more

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Oct 21, 2011

Allie Vaccaro added it · review of another edition

I am the Cheese is physiological thriller that revolves around a peculiar teenager named Adam. Adam is trying to tug at his memory for clues from the past so that his present makes sense. His life takes him on journies from riding his bike to Rutterburg to see his father, to running into vicious dogs in the woods. This book is recommended for any teenager looking for a good mysterious story about a young boy. The story is a little hard to follow but in the end it starts to all make sense.

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Sep 22, 2008

Jorgina rated it

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Recommends it for: NOBODY

Wish I had NEVER read this book. Required reading for my 10th grader so I read it first. Starts out good, keeps you reading even if it does bounce back and forth in time. Then it ends horribly, suddenly without resolving anything and with no hope no finality. It just ends where it begins. It does give you the endless circle that a mentally disturbed person must feel but GOSH! Why, during a youth's most unsettling years of self doubt, low self esteem, bouts of depression, hopelessness; the t...more

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Feb 28, 2008

Jay Gowen rated it

· review of another edition

While I enjoyed this book, I didn't think it was as good as the (only) other Cormier book I've read, We All Fall Down. The ending not only surprised me, but confused me as well. I remember re-reading it a couple of times before I felt as though I understood it, and even then, my wife and I were in disagreement as to what we believed actually happened.

That's the only drawback in my opinion: Cormier holds his hand so close to his chest during the entire book, that once he decides to...more

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Jan 26, 2009

Jackiejukie rated it

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Searching desperately for a book, i find myself in my brother's library to discover not only a mysterious past, but how loneliness drives one to shut down to have no recollect of their past.I Am The Cheese is a story of mystery which is not unraveled until the very end of the story. The main character Adam seems to be traveling from therapist sessions back to encounter a journey to visit his father. Eventually the ending answers all the questions we have about Adam. Who is he? Why is he being in...moreSearching desperately for a book, i find myself in my brother's library to discover not only a mysterious past, but how loneliness drives one to shut down to have no recollect of their past.I Am The Cheese is a story of mystery which is not unraveled until the very end of the story. The main character Adam seems to be traveling from therapist sessions back to encounter a journey to visit his father. Eventually the ending answers all the questions we have about Adam. Who is he? Why is he being interviewed? What has he faced? What does cheese have to do with the title?
At first the novel attracts you with a what we assume is a teenage boy who is riding his bike to give his father a present. We are not told what is in the box of the present but the "clues" as it were, we learn through out his journey. Adam is in love with a girl names Amy Hertz, lives in Monument Massachusetts, and is seeking to give his father something, whose ideal location is in Vermont. All the while, Adam is willing to make this trip by bike. Throughout the first half of the book we try to establish the relationship between these sessions and the story Adam keeps sharing. In the sessions Adam can't seem to recall most of his memories and referred to them as "blanks". Noticing that these stories were not only different but that in each segment, he refers to himself differently. Such that of when he shares what seem to be his hidden memories, he refers to himself by third person, using "Adam said this" or "Adam did that". Then when it gets to the story portion he speaks as though he is explaining his own feelings to the reader.
The sessions eventually reveal themselves to being a way to help unlock Adams past, but the "therapist" insists on luring Adam to dark place about his family. Eventually the secret that Adam's family had been lying to him about his entire existence. Adam's family had been under protective watch ever since his father testified against a powerful role in government. In order to keep the family safe, all their identities had to be heavily protected. Showing that Paul Delmonte is Adam Farmer's true identity.
Not giving too much away, but learning soon that the story of traveling to visit his father has become a yearly routine. Not due to the father having a birthday, but in fact Adam can not seem to remember his memories after sharing them with the therapist. All the interviews tend to have a similar routine until Adam seems to be holding things inside, whether it was to not go through the pain or know when to not trust anyone he was speaking to. Once he reaches his limit or remembrance. the cycle begins all over again. He is living a reoccurring nightmare over and over again, and will not stop unless sent out of the hospital for good, or is put to silence, indefinitely.
When "Adam" was growing up, his father would sing him a song about their name, farmer. it would start out "the farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell, hi-ho the merry-o, the farmer in the dell". Eventually as of singing the entire song, it ends up with, "the rat takes the cheese, the rat takes the cheese hi-ho the merry-o, the rat takes the cheese. The cheese stands alone the cheese stands alone, hi-ho the merry-o the cheese stands alone." Adam seems to relate himself to the cheese for once his family was taken away from him, he had no more connections to the real world, and was completely alone, without proper memory of his life.
I would recommend this book because it's entertaining to read and you never want to put it down. it could be due to the fact that it keeps interchanging between interview and story. it was well written and i had a great time reading it even though it turned out to be very depressing. I tried not to spoil the whole book, i think i didn't because i kept good details. So read it. You'll enjoy it.
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Jan 24, 2012

Beau rated it

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Have you ever watched the movie "Abduction" staring Taylor Lautner? Well this book is just like that movie but it actually puts a modern twist to it. Although this book is a fictional book, the way the author tells it makes it so much more realistic. This book is full of deception and lies that it makes this book interesting.

This book is about a kid named Adam Farmer who has been drugged into finding out more information about his family, mainly his father. As Adam is induced...more

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Oct 20, 2011

Mariahsalameh_ added it · review of another edition

Who is Adam Farmer? Who is Paul Delmonte? Who is Brint? Where is Adam? What are these “tapes”, and why are they deleted? Who is Mr. Grey? And what pills? Are just some of the many questions you are going to ask yourself when you read this novel.
The focus of the novel being around an innocent teenager named Adam Farmer who just wants to know the truth, makes for an interesting story. The novel not only alternates between two time periods leaving the reader confused, yet craving more, but i...more

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Feb 02, 2011

Jason Darnell rated it

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I am the cheese was not one of my favorite books. It was some what difficult to understand who Adam Farmer really is. There were about three narrators, Adam being the first peron narrative, and an anonymous third person narrator as well as someone who narrates the tape sessions he has. The sessions he has are with his psychiatrist Brint. Brint plays mind games with Adam, because he's trying to find out information about Adam's past life, which he has very little memory of. Sometimes it seems as ...more

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Jan 10, 2011

John rated it

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Robert Cormier is my favorite author.

Adam Farmer pedals on his bicycle to find his father and solve the mysteries of his past. Why does he have two birth certificates? What is the meaning of his mothers' mysterious phone calls? Who is the Gray Man? And why is someone so desperate to know these secrets? These questions spiral Adam down towards the truth, which may be better left uncovered...

This is one of Cormier's lighter novels; some of the mature tones that flood through Th...more

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Jan 09, 2011

Laina rated it

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Shelves: suggested-for-lib

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Dec 09, 2010

Sydney White rated it

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Shelves: ya-lit

When I was four years old I went through a terrible night terrors phase. My parents said that I would wake up in the middle of the night for weeks on end after having recurring nightmares. Fortunately I don't remember any of them today, but I do recall how nice it was to crawl into bed with them and feel safe enough to continue the rest of the night's sleeping hours. When I finished Cormier's I am Cheese it was 11:00 pm, my house was dark, and the trees outside the bedroom were looming through...more

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Sep 16, 2010

Tahleen rated it

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Shelves: teen, thrillers, young-adult

This book is a very difficult one to summarize. We have Adam Farmer, a 14-year-old boy who is biking his way to Vermont from a small town in Massachusetts with the goal of visiting his father. Yet these first-person, present-tense accounts are alternated with taped conversations Adam has with a man named Brint, supposedly a psychiatrist of some sort—these conversations are an attempt to get Adam to remember his past which is so horrible that he has been repressing the memories. What does this al...more

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Apr 30, 2010

Roxanne rated it

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This is on a list of short books that were somehow life changing for me.

My original read was years and years ago - I was maybe around 12 or 13. I have this distinct memory of finishing the book very late at night - when everything is dark and the house and the world are asleep. I was completely overwhelmed by two things, (1) all encompassing loneliness - not in a boo-hoo sort of way, but more in a born alone, die alone Ultimate Truth epiphany moment, and (2) being absolutely unsure ...more

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Feb 11, 2010

Josh Stoll rated it

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This book was something else, particularly for a young adult book-- its writing was messy, run on, and dense during the first person narrated segments, and clean and precise during the transcript segments. It touches on many topics important to young adults, and isn't afraid to address adult themes-- death, violence, sexuality. I loved the first person voice in this book, so neurotic and afraid, but poetic.
Summary: It'll be tough to summarize the plot without taking away the interest o...moreThis book was something else, particularly for a young adult book-- its writing was messy, run on, and dense during the first person narrated segments, and clean and precise during the transcript segments. It touches on many topics important to young adults, and isn't afraid to address adult themes-- death, violence, sexuality. I loved the first person voice in this book, so neurotic and afraid, but poetic.
Summary: It'll be tough to summarize the plot without taking away the interest of the book-- who is Adam Farmer? Basically, Adam is a kid who escaping from somewhere to meet with his father, who's in a hospital over 70 miles away. He carries with him a package, and details his trip in first-person throughout the book-- he faces hurdles and obstacles, not the least of which is his love for Amy, a girl from his school. But the other segments of the book, which purport to be transcripts of a therapy session with Adam, reveal more about Adam's tragic past, and begin to unravel a story full of intrigue, danger, and utter melancholy.
Adam Farmer: A really great character. He is neurotic, afraid of everything, incredibly shy around everyone but Amy, and inimitably determined. He is a complicated voice, particularly when he's narrating his thoughts-- he often speaks in metaphor, and, particularly in the therapy sessions, can be reticent and unforthcoming.
Amy: Another interesting character. She talks "like a wise-guy", calling Adam "Ace" and the like. She has a game, Numbers, where she tries to fill up a shopping cart as full as possible without anybody asking questions. She is outgoing, intelligent, sensitive, and means everything to Adam, as she's the only person around whom he can even begin to be himself.
Other interesting information:
The thrust of this book primarily hinges on feeding a little bit of information about what's going on with the main character at a time. It isn't until the end that we fully realize the truth of our protagonist-- this book is worth reading for the ending alone. If you enjoy this quasi-mystery style of story-telling, you might try Atonement by Ian Mcewan, or Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer. (less)

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Sep 28, 2009

Lauren Hopkins rated it

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I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Mystery/Identity/Grief/Corruption

Adam Farmer has forgotten who he is and where he is. He is aided by an elusive "guide" named Brint who steers him in the direction of his memories. Slowly, Adam remembers his horrifying past and the reader discovers the answers just as slowly as Adam. The novel is formatted in an interesting way. Beginning with a first person narrative of Adam riding his bicycle miles and miles to reach his father in Ru...more

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Aug 26, 2009

Melissa rated it

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Shelves: 10th-grade-advisory

I Am the Cheese
Robert Cormier
214p.
Dell Laurel-Leaf
ISBN: 0440940605

I Am the Cheese

Adam Farmer is 14 years old his parents died and now he is in a mental hospital. A guy named Brint is trying to help Adam remember his past. Brint keeps asking about his father. While he has his sessions with Brint, he starts remembering more and more about his past.
In the beginning of the story Adam is riding a bike to Vermont to give his father a prese...more

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May 13, 2009

Asenath rated it

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Shelves: ya-lit, realistic-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 05, 2011

Janessa Brown rated it

Shelves: young-adult-literature

Um. . . I finished this book just minutes ago, and the more I try to wrap my head around what just happened, the more my head becomes a stretched-out mess!! This incredibly thought provoking novel is absolutely insane! I feel like anything I say will give away pieces of it, so I'm going to keep it to a minimum.

This story is told through a 3-way fork that merges into a suspenseful, climatic ending. These forks being Adam's memories, his conversation with Brint about these memories, and...more

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Oct 21, 2010

Stephanie rated it

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Shelves: young-adult

This review originally appeared on www.readinasinglesitting.com

In his seminal young adult novel The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier examines issues of power and governance, highlighting that ruling entities traditionally perceived as benign are not necessarily so; moreover, these entities will use others’ perception of them to oppress, manipulate, and wage wars of ideology. The book is a powerful, chilling read, and one examines the gradual breakdown of trust and the severing of support ...moreThis review originally appeared on www.readinasinglesitting.com

In his seminal young adult novel The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier examines issues of power and governance, highlighting that ruling entities traditionally perceived as benign are not necessarily so; moreover, these entities will use others’ perception of them to oppress, manipulate, and wage wars of ideology. The book is a powerful, chilling read, and one examines the gradual breakdown of trust and the severing of support until the individual necessarily stands alone, and is perhaps all the more disturbing for the way in which it is framed within such a trivial pursuit: the selling of fundraising chocolates.

In I am the Cheese, Cormier also engages with these themes, but pushes them even further, creating an astonishing narrative rife with paranoia that brings to mind the dystopian worlds created by Orwell, and the existential ambiguity of Dick. The novel is not dystopian as such, but its engagement of an oppressive, ruthless government, a pointed commentary given that its time of writing was not long after the Watergate scandal; its depictions of the machinations of the shadowy, anonymous figures who populate its pages; and its consideration of issues of identity and the ways in which it can be reconstituted or deconstituted makes it difficult not to consider it within this particular literary legacy.

I am the Cheese takes a dual narrative approach, braiding together two linked but asynchronous stories that the reader realises will inexorably collide, and in doing so will solve, at least to some degree, the mystery that is being unravelled, or perhaps extracted, clue by clue. The book’s opening should be almost nondescript, depicting as it does fourteen-year-old Adam Farmer as he sets out to take a parcel to his father, who lies in hospital some several hours’ bicycle ride away. But the reader feels an almost immediate sense of foreboding at the breathless internal monologue to which Adam treats us: what should be a simple trip fills him with terror, and his ambivalence in setting out on the first place is evidence in his desperation to telephone his girlfriend, and in his continual hypothesising about the horrors that will undoubtedly come his way. This niggling discomfort sets in further when the dual narrative of interrogation begins: this narrative line depicts artefacts from taped interviews in which Adam is interrogated by a man known as Brint.

As Adam pushes onwards, travelling on his bicycle and becoming increasingly nervous as he encounters all manner of seemingly normal things that serve to terrify him, we’re also treated to a number of flashbacks that serve to bridge the reality of his bicycle ride with the cold distance of the taped interviews. Adam’s recollections are odd, confused, and when tied in with the braid of the rest of the narrative, the reader is slowly able to glean something about his character, if not his situation. There is the time when his father without warning dragged him into a nearby; his mother’s whispered talks with an aunt he has been told does not exist; the two birth certificates both bearing his name, but with different dates of birth. There is the fact that others seem to have little recollection of his family; the strange visits from a man Adam hazily recalls is named Grey; the telephone numbers that no longer connect. This slowly dispensed information combines with the increasingly stark, cruel interrogative narrative until we begin to realise that Adam is not the ward of a well-meaning therapist, but is being coldly pressed for information that he seems unwilling, or unable to provide.

I’m loathe to give away the ending, which is stunningly moving, brutally frank, and highly ambiguous all at once, but I will say that Cormier toys with identity, reality, and belonging with sublime incision. Adam is in a sense reborn anew at several stages in the book, yet is entirely lost at the same time. It’s telling that he longs to be an author, and that he and his father have in common their mutual love of literature, as literature, endlessly generative and renewing, and entirely internal, is the one thing that cannot be stolen away from them. Moreover, Adam’s act of bringing the parcel to his father is itself an endless cycle, representing both the infinity of loss as well as internal renaissance–indeed, the gift, the stuffed toy that Adam held so dear as a boy, is perfectly emblematic of his lost childhood. Identity, too, is problematised all throughout the book, with only one character in the book retaining a single identity as everyone else becomes another, or stops becoming at all. Grey, for example, as his name suggests, is such a fleeting, amorphous character, and turns out to be someone entirely different from whom he purports to be; the moral ambiguity hinted at by his moniker is in full force at the end of the novel. Similarly, Brint, Adam’s interviewer, turns from therapist to interrogator to judge. Adam and his family, of course, are many themselves, but are simultaneously forced to be no one as they withdraw from the world, something that Adam does entirely when Brint’s interrogations prove to be too much.

As this last suggests, this book ends on a note that is starkly terrifying, and that challenges to bleak effect the notion of the benign ruling power. I am reminded of The Life and Times of Michael K , which I recently reviewed, in which K can only protect himself from the machinations of others by retreating entirely into himself until he is no longer anyone at all.(less)

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Apr 19, 2010

Josiah rated it

It's difficult to find the words to describe an experience in literature like this one. I Am the Cheese is so deeply wrapped in the profundity of its own enigma that it stands alone from nearly anything else that has ever been written. The feeling that one gets from reading Robert Cormier books is vastly different from the aura of any other author's material because one senses the fact that a content, pleasing ending is not at all a foregone conclusion, that things just as likely (if not more s...more It's difficult to find the words to describe an experience in literature like this one. I Am the Cheese is so deeply wrapped in the profundity of its own enigma that it stands alone from nearly anything else that has ever been written. The feeling that one gets from reading Robert Cormier books is vastly different from the aura of any other author's material because one senses the fact that a content, pleasing ending is not at all a foregone conclusion, that things just as likely (if not more so) might turn from bad to even worse for the protagonist that we come to know, a person with whom we become so intimately acquainted because his unforgettable narrating words are continually echoing inside our head while we read the story. No happy ending is promised in Robert Cormier's books, and in I Am the Cheese it is exactly that desperate foreboding that ratchets up the intensity as the narrative speeds along. It is bad, what is going to happen...we just don't know how bad.

To try to give a synopsis of the action in this book would be like attempting to capture wind in a tupperware container. It's hard to discern as one reads along just which Adam Farmer is the real one, the present one, the one who has already experienced all of the other parts to his story and come out on the other side of it. Delving any further into the narrative than that would risk tipping off points of the intricately stunning plot that awaits the reader of the book, and I wouldn't do that for anything. What I can say, though, is that I Am the Cheese is unleashed upon us with all the intensity of Robert Cormier's most awesomely powerful stories, and no one who experiences it will ever forget the impact of its revelations upon their own mind.

I Am the Cheese is truly one in a million; then again, it's the product of an author who is something more like one in a billion. You probably won't know what to think about it when you've flipped the final page, but you'll know that you've run smack into a literary brick wall. I would give three and a half stars to this book. (less)

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Sep 08, 2011

Jenny rated it

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Shelves: young-adult, school

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. From the first, I was curious about the narrator's age. Later in the story he says he is fourteen, though often he seems younger (as it turns out, there is a reason for this). The author employs three styles of narration: first person, third person, and interview transcript. The interviews, with a man called Brint, quickly take on a sinister tone: Adam correctly perceives that Brint is not a doctor, and Brint is evasive - he says he wants to help Adam fill in the blanks in his memory, and yet Ad...moreFrom the first, I was curious about the narrator's age. Later in the story he says he is fourteen, though often he seems younger (as it turns out, there is a reason for this). The author employs three styles of narration: first person, third person, and interview transcript. The interviews, with a man called Brint, quickly take on a sinister tone: Adam correctly perceives that Brint is not a doctor, and Brint is evasive - he says he wants to help Adam fill in the blanks in his memory, and yet Adam realizes that Brint is more interested in certain "specifics" than he is in Adam's other memories. In addition, there is much talk of pills and needles (for sedation purposes, apparently).

The entire book centers around the character of Adam as he makes two parallel journeys: one on his bike, from Monument, MA to Rutterburg, VT, and the other into his past, trying to fill in the blanks, find out who he is and what happened to his parents. Through the interviews, his memory comes back to him: his family had been under government protection - an early version of the Witness Protection Program - after his father, a reporter, testified in court. Adam's real name is Paul Delmonte.

Not long after he learns of this from his parents and begins to adjust to the new reality, the Grey Man - allegedly the government agent in charge of keeping the family safe - calls the house and warns them they might have been exposed and ought to leave town for a few days. They pack the car and go. On their drive, Adam/Paul's father notices that they are being followed; they pull over and let the car go past them, and his father observes that it's "Grey's men," keeping an eye on them. But the car returns - with murderous intent. Adam sees his mother die; he does not see his father. Adam himself suffers severe trauma, such that three years later he is in a facility (not so much medical as government). His bike ride, we find out, is also fictional: he is merely riding around the grounds of the facility. (This revelation is similar to that in the movie The Usual Suspects, when the audience realizes that Kevin Spacey has invented the entire story out of clippings from a bulletin board.)

Brint is interviewing Adam to see what he remembers, and in the last few pages of the book is the "annual report" on Adam's condition, complete with "advisories": (1) that Adam ("Subject A") be "terminated," or, failing that, that he (3) remain in "confinement" until he can be terminated or until he "obliterates." (Advisory #2 is that Mr. Grey be reinstated as an agent.)

This is all rather cold and horrifying: to find out that you aren't who you thought you were (Paul Delmonte, not Adam Farmer) is identity-shaking enough, but then to realize - as Adam might, fuzzily, but as the reader can certainly piece together - that the governmental authority that was supposed to protect you in fact betrayed you. The facts alone are a dash of cold water, more poignant still as Adam is so alone and confused, never to grow up to have a solid identity or a normal life. (less)

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Dec 11, 2010

chris law rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Do you really know what a cheese is? A real cheese is just like Adam’s life in the book I Am the Cheese. It is like Adam’s life because a cheese has many holes and you do not know what would happen next. The book was by Robert Cormier. The main characters of this book are Adam, Brint and Grey. The time of the story is in the 1970s and the setting of the story is in Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. The main problem in this book is that Adam knows his real identity. He lost his memory because...more

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Jul 31, 2011

Kimberli rated it

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This is an amazing book! I wasn't sure if I was going to like it because I really didn't like "The Chocolate War" by Cormier. However, this book has so much mystery around every turn in the story and its just the kind of psychological thriller that you can really get into. The main character Adam Farmer seems so innocent and true as he recollects his journey of riding his bike for several miles throughout several states in order to deliver a very important package to his father who ...more

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Jan 07, 2009

Carrie is currently reading it · review of another edition

I'm rereading this for the first time since I read and hated it when I was 11 years old. Now I'm 42 and have an MFA in writing. Will it help?

I was completely bewildered the first time around by my first non-linear narrative. So reading the first chapter I already remember the fear I felt for the protagonist. Where are his parents? He's riding his bike all alone and no one knows where he is. And why does he have to visit his father? And why is his father gone? One thing that occ...more

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Oct 20, 2011

Kendal Kristiansen added it · review of another edition

Kendal Kristiansen
Mrs. Barthelmes
H English
21 October 2011

Book Review

In this vigorous novel by Robert Cormier, Adam is in Massachusetts on his way to see his father. This is the first plot strand that the book follows. On his odyssey Adam encounters a viscous dog and some other boys who trifle with him. The second strand tapes portray Adam as a deranged adolescent speaking to his physiatrist about his lugubrious life full of lies and learning his identity. He st...more

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Mar 29, 2011

Laura rated it

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Shelves: boys, ya

Robert Cromier writes amazing, bleak books for teens and I Am the Cheese is no exception. I Am the Cheese is a psychological mystery about Adam Farmer, teenage boy on a mysterious bicycle journey to meet his father. The story unfolds in two ways--chapters alternate between Adam's bike adventure and a strange, almost haunted conversation with a man who seems to be some sort of psychiatrist. The result is a strange read, a mystery that seems to grow more confusing with every unveiled clue.
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About Robert Cormier

Robert Edmund Cormier (January 17, 1925–November 2, 2000) was an American author, columnist and reporter, known for his deeply pessimistic, downbeat literature. His most popular works include I Am the Cheese, After the First Death, We All Fall Down and The Chocolate War, all of which have won awards. The Chocolate War was challenged in multiple libraries. His books often are concerned with themes ...more

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Beyond the Chocolate War (Chocolate War, #2)

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Quotes from I Am the Cheese

“He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the jugular. Active verbs that danced and raced on the page.” — 7 people liked it

“A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the stronger one. As if he was a bright color and she was a faded color. I know it sounds crazy.
T: Not at all.
A: But later, when I learned the truth about our lives, I found she was still sad. But strong, too. Not faded at all. It wasn't sadness so much as fear--the Never Knows.” — 2 people liked it

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