📚 Book🎬 Tweens · Ages 11–13Humor

Restart (2017)

About This Book

Chase Ambrose, the biggest bully in school, falls off his roof and wakes up with total amnesia, unable to remember who he was or what he did. As he rediscovers his life through the eyes of a complete stranger, he has to decide whether to become the person everyone expects him to be or someone entirely new. Korman toggles between multiple narrators, letting readers see Chase from every angle: the kids he terrorized, the friends who enabled him, and the kid he is trying to become.

Why It's a Classic

Gordon Korman uses the amnesia premise not as a gimmick but as a genuine philosophical experiment, asking whether identity is something you are born with or something you choose every day. The multiple narrators are brilliantly deployed, because the reader knows more about Chase's past than Chase does, creating a tension where every kind act he performs is shadowed by the knowledge of who he used to be. Korman has written over a hundred books for young readers, and his comedy chops are sharp enough to keep the book funny even when it is dealing with the real damage bullying causes. The ending avoids easy answers about forgiveness, acknowledging that some people Chase hurt may never fully trust him again, which gives the book an emotional honesty that elevates it above a simple redemption story.

Fun Fact

Korman published his first novel at age twelve after writing it as a seventh-grade English assignment, making him one of the youngest commercially published novelists in history. His teacher submitted the manuscript to Scholastic without telling him. By the time he graduated high school, he had published five books.

Parent Note

The book deals directly with bullying and its aftermath, including scenes where characters recall being physically intimidated and emotionally humiliated. Korman handles these moments with sensitivity, and the multiple perspectives help readers understand both sides of bullying dynamics.