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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
Violence in the backstory including murder and government conspiracy
Language
Barely any
Mild profanity
Sexual Content
None
No sexual content
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
Government conspiracy that destroys a family; psychological manipulation during psychiatric sessions; the protagonist's reality is systematically dismantled
What this book is about
Adam Farmer bicycles from Massachusetts toward Vermont, looking for his father. Simultaneously, he undergoes psychiatric interviews in a strange institution. The two narratives gradually converge to reveal a conspiracy: Adam's family was in a government witness protection program, and what happened to them is deeply disturbing. Cormier's 1977 psychological thriller is one of the darkest and most formally inventive YA novels ever written.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Government conspiracy and murder of a family
Psychological manipulation
Deeply disturbing revelation about protagonist's reality
Deliberately hopeless ending
Reader Verification
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