Restart

Korman asks the question every kid (and adult) secretly fears: if you could wipe the slate clean, would you become someone better—or slide back into who you were? It's a rare bully story told from inside the bully's head, where redemption has to be earned face-to-face from the people he hurt. Perfect for middle-grade readers, classrooms tackling bullying, and anyone who's ever wanted to undo their worst self.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Fall

   Chase Ambrose wakes up in a hospital with no idea who he is. A woman he doesn't recognize turns out to be his mother; a doctor explains he has retrograde amnesia after falling off his roof. When he looks in a mirror, the face staring back is a stranger's—"I don't know this person. I don't know this face." The fall wiped everything: his name, his home, his history. What nobody tells him yet is that the missing history is the point. Back home, Shoshanna Weber hears the news and fumes—Chase Ambrose is coming back to school. She hates him with her whole body, because Chase and his friends put her twin brother Joel in the hospital with a concussion after years of bullying. At school, the reactions make no sense to Chase. Brendan Espinoza, a video club kid, is terrified at the sight of him—he remembers being stuffed into a locker, shoved into a dumpster by Chase and his friends Aaron and Bear. Aaron Hakimian, Chase's old best friend, is thrilled to have his partner in crime back. Chase just walks the halls confused: why does Shoshanna glare, why do kids flinch when he passes? He doesn't know he's the answer to every question.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Wrong King

   Everyone expects Chase to reclaim his throne. Instead, he joins the video club instead of the football team, and the school is stunned—he discovers he actually loves filming and editing, a total break from his jock past. Aaron is disgusted. Chase won't rejoin the team or resume their old bullying ways, and Aaron lets him have it: "You used to be the king of this school. Now you're hanging out with losers." Meanwhile, Shoshanna gets assigned as Chase's partner on a school project and is furious—but she starts noticing something off: this Chase is polite, quiet, genuinely confused by her hostility. Then Chase finds his old phone. Scrolling through photos and texts, he's horrified by evidence of his own cruelty, including a video of him and Aaron tormenting a younger kid. He learns he led a group that terrorized students—without a single memory of it. Brendan warms up after Chase helps on a video project, realizing the new Chase is nothing like the bully who made his life miserable. When Aaron and his friends corner Chase in the hallway demanding he come back, Chase refuses—and Aaron shoves him: "You're dead to us, Ambrose."

3. 3

   Act 3

   Facing the Damage

   At Shoshanna's urging, Joel agrees to meet Chase. In a tense conversation, Joel lays it bare: "You ruined my life. I had to leave my own school because of you." Chase also returns to the nursing home where he volunteered as part of a court-ordered community service sentence—he remembers none of it, but the residents remember him fondly, which only deepens the confusion about who he actually was. Then the walls close in. Aaron vandalizes the video club's equipment to get revenge, and Brendan catches him in the act—Aaron threatens him: "Tell anyone and you'll end up like Weber." Chase's father, a former football star, pressures him to return to the team: "Football is who you are. Without it, you're nothing." Chase has had enough. He stands up to Aaron publicly in the cafeteria in front of the whole school: "I'm not that guy anymore. I don't want to be him." Shoshanna, meanwhile, defends Chase when students mock him for the video club, and tells Joel, "He's not the same person. I actually believe that now."

4. 4

   Act 4

   The Restart

   The memories start coming back in fragments—and the biggest one reframes everything: the day he fell off the roof, Chase was trying to retrieve a cat for a little girl in the neighborhood, not doing a reckless stunt. Shoshanna admits to him, "I spent so long hating you, I didn't notice you changed," and they become tentative friends. Brendan reports the vandalism, and Aaron is suspended; on his way out he snarls at Chase, "You think you're better than me now? You're just a nobody who forgot how to be great." With his memory of playing football fully returned, Chase still tells the coach no: "I remember how to play. I just don't want to be that person anymore." Joel performs a concert at school—a piece he composed about his pain, played for Chase beforehand with the words, "I don't forgive you. But I'm not afraid of you anymore." After the performance, Joel nods at Chase from the stage, a small gesture of acknowledgment and peace. Chase accepts he may never recover everything, and settles the question for himself: "I don't know who I was. But I know who I want to be."

• CChase AmbroseThe school's feared bully-king who falls off a roof, loses every memory, and gets a blank slate he didn't ask for. He must choose daily between the person everyone remembers and the person he's becoming.
• SShoshanna WeberChase's project partner and fiercest hater—her twin brother landed in the hospital because of Chase. She watches her hatred run out of evidence, and becomes his most reluctant defender.
• JJoel WeberShoshanna's twin, hospitalized by bullying and sent away to recover. He returns terrified of Chase, then finds his voice—literally, through his violin—and his own terms for peace.
• AAaron HakimianChase's former best friend and partner in bullying, furious that the new Chase won't play king. His sabotage and threats make him the story's warning: some people never want the restart.
• BBrendan EspinozaA video club kid once stuffed into lockers and dumpsters by Chase's crew. He's the first victim to give the new Chase a chance—and the one who catches Aaron's vandalism.
• CChase's fatherA former football star who sees his son's identity as a family inheritance. He pressures Chase back onto the team, standing for the old definition of who Chase is supposed to be.

The amnesia

The old phone and its videos

Joel's violin

The football team

The ending refuses the tidy version of forgiveness, and that's why it works. Joel never says he forgives Chase—he says he's not afraid anymore, and the nod from the stage is acknowledgment, not absolution. That distinction is the book's moral spine: the person who caused harm doesn't get to declare himself healed, and the person who was harmed doesn't owe healing on anyone's schedule. Chase's own resolution is similarly honest—he accepts he may never fully recover his memory, and stops needing to. One reading is that the amnesia was never the point; the fall just bought him time and distance, and the real restart was the daily choice to act differently once he knew exactly what he'd done. A darker reading lingers underneath: memory is fragile, and a person could just as easily slide back—which is exactly what Aaron, the story's foil, does. The final line—"I don't know who I was. But I know who I want to be."—lands because it doesn't claim victory. It claims direction, which is the only thing a restart can actually give you.

1. 1.Is Chase's redemption earned, or does amnesia let him skip the hard part of accountability? Weigh his choices against what Joel and Brendan actually get out of them.

Middle-grade readers, especially kids navigating bullying from either side of it, and classrooms looking for a discussion starter on accountability and second chances. Also any parent or teacher who wants a story where the bully's redemption never erases the victims' side of the ledger.

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