The first book I ever read by Robert Cormier was After the First Death. Although I admitted that the book was well written intellectually, the book was very dated in a 1970's world and I didn't give it credit for being a wonderful novel. Being dated to the 1970's is key to understanding both First Death and I am the Cheese.
I am the Cheese is an amazing book. Matt Elmore always told me to read it: he loved the book. I think in high school he loved all of Cormier's work. After I read First Death, I couldn't understand why. Now that I've read Cheese, it makes perfect sense. Cormier's writing style captures the teenage boy mentality, excitement and fears. Although I've long since left my teenage years, my heart was racing while reading this book.
Unfortunately, I can't write much about the book because I don't reveal any spoilers from the book; you have to figure it out for yourself. But in true Cormier style, he was telling you the secrets of the ending throughout the book (even telling you that he's telling you), but I never picked up on them: I was too enraptured by the story itself. Needless to say, I couldn't put this book down, didn't sleep, read it when I should have been working until I finished it. Each chapter was a horrible place to end. What I'm interested to see is whether or not this book reads as well the second or third or thirteenth time through.
As I said before, what is interesting about Cormier's work from this era is that it is very rooted in a 1970's mentality. I didn't respect that when reading Second Death because I was living in the prosperous 90's. During the 70s there were terrorists, plane hijackings, terrible strife in the Middle East, etc. Sound familiar? Perhaps experince of living through the early 2000s has allowed me to see what I missed in the 70s. Either way, I understand Cormier's pessimistic and dark world much better.
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