I Am the Cheese

The story follows Adam Farmer, a teenage boy on a lonely bicycle trip to visit his father. As Adam pedals across New England, fragments of his past emerge through flashbacks and taped interviews with a psychiatrist. Slowly, the pieces fit together: Adam’s life is not what it seems, his family is entangled in a secret government witness protection program, and his very identity may be a fabrication.

Cormier masterfully weaves two narrative threads—the bike journey and the therapy sessions—into a story of paranoia, betrayal, and the search for truth. The novel’s haunting, ambiguous ending leaves readers questioning the reliability of memory, the price of secrecy, and the fragility of identity itself.

Considered a landmark in YA fiction, I Am the Cheese stands beside Cormier’s The Chocolate War as a daring, uncompromising work that challenged the boundaries of what stories for young people could confront.