Restart
Gordon Korman (2017)
“What if you woke up and couldn't remember being a terrible person — would you still be one?”
EraContemporary
Pages244
Difficulty★☆☆☆☆ Accessible
AP Appearances0
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.
How They Speak
Post-amnesia: stripped, direct, lacking the social coding of a typical teenager. Pre-amnesia (as reported by others): confident, commanding, using language to dominate.