Restart
Gordon Korman (2017)
“What if you woke up and couldn't remember being a terrible person — would you still be one?”
Characters in Restart
by Gordon Korman · 2017 · 7 characters analyzed
Cast: Chase Ambrose, Shoshanna Weber, Brendan Espinoza, Aaron Hakimian, Bear Bratsky, Mr. Solway, Joel Weber.
Character Analysis
Chase is the novel's experiment in identity. Stripped of his memories, he defaults to kindness — suggesting that his cruelty was learned rather than innate. But Korman complicates this by leaving the question genuinely open: maybe Chase is kind now because he hasn't been re-exposed to the pressures that made him cruel. The novel's power comes from never definitively answering which Chase is the 'real' one.
Post-amnesia: stripped, direct, lacking the social coding of a typical teenager. Pre-amnesia (as reported by others): confident, commanding, using language to dominate.