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Reviews: Intense Psychological Effect of Terrorism

Book Review: "Too Much Terror for Us Rabbits"

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Clarence E. Olson reviews After the First Death, stating that he will avoid reading Robert Cormier's work in the future, not for a lack of quality writing, but because its use of sustained terror is nerve-wracking and emotive. He writes "Cormier has the ruthlessness of a terrorist himself, the kind of ideological drive that makes him pull back the bloodied sheet and demand that we look squarely at the consequences of violence." He speaks to the impossible circumstance Cormier places his adolescent characters in and the pervasive evil in his stories, making reference to I Am the Cheese to do so.

Book Review: "Nightmarish Novel of Terrorist Violence"

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Grover Sales' review of After the First Death for the San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle praises the book's treatment of terrorism as above the current trends on the topic. He specifically speaks of patriotism and Ben Marchant's spoiled innocence.

Book Review: "Exposing Teenagers To One Fact of Life"

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In this brief review of After the First Death, Jim Haskins, an associate professor of English at the University of Florida, offers his impressions of Robert Cormier's novel. After summarizing the plot broadly, Haskins goes on to compliment Cormier's writing as honest and powerful - in some cases as brutal as it is riveting.

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This scholarly article titled "The Long Term Costs of Traumatic Stress: Intertwined Physical and Psychological Consequences" by Alexander C. McFarlane was published on the National Institute of Health's website, is reprinted from the journal, World Psychiatry (February 9, 2010). It addresses research that continues to be amassed that demonstrates severe long-term health effects of traumatic experience upon the sufferer.