Restart

Shoshanna is the hot-headed, temperamental twin sister of Joel Weber. Like virtually every character in Restart, her views change and evolve, especially when it comes to Chase. From dumping yogurt over his head to embracing him affectionately, her relationship with Chase goes through several ups and downs.

Opinionated and blunt, Shoshanna is unafraid to speak her mind. She is committed to being prophetically truthful in every way, except when it comes to telling her parents and brother that she is working closely with Chase. She is a foil to Chase. A blank slate, Chase has no opinions. Shoshanna has an opinion about everything and everyone, which sometimes leads her to make rash decisions for which she must apologize, as when she explains to Solway why she and Chase stopped coming to see him: “It’s my fault. […] I got mad at Chase for something that was only partly his fault. That’s why he stopped coming. Not because he didn’t want to see you, but because he didn’t want to see me. And I stopped because I didn’t want to run into him” (220).

Shoshanna also has an artistic, perfectionistic side. Given the opportunity to create an award-winning video about Solway, she throws herself into it wholeheartedly. Working diligently, her skill in interviewing and editing results in a true work of art that eventually wins the National Video Journalism Contest.

Brendan is a joyful clown, the emotional heart of the story. The president of the video club, his great ambition is to make viral YouTube videos. Instead, all his carefully planned out videos go hilariously wrong, though his spirit remains undaunted. Other club members regularly tell him he is crazy and refuse to serve as his crew when he pitches his outlandish ideas.

Brendan is the comedic relief, the character who always seems to get the funniest line. In his case, the comedy centers around his adoration of Kimberly, who joins the video club to be near Chase. Brendan knows he can get close to Kimberly so long as he stages events that Chase also attends, and while he acknowledges this ultimately does not work in his favor, he constantly conspires to get the three of them together. About his quandary, he says, “This whole romance thing is way more complicated than I anticipated” (124).

When Chase asks how bad his past behavior was, Brendan is reluctant to respond. Finally, he shows Chase a scar on his forehead that resulted from mistreatment by Chase. In a book where people are continually hung up on assumptions and prior perceptions, Brendan demonstrates a capacity to trust and entertain new perspectives. He is the first to befriend Chase and the only friend who never fully abandons Chase, even when the rest of the video club turns away. Given this ability to perceive change and true character, it is fitting that Brendan narrates the book’s final chapter.

Like Chase, Aaron is an eighth-grade football player. He has a reputation for bullying helpless kids that is second only to Chase. Shoshanna and Joel call Aaron the “Beta Rat” (13) to Chase’s Alpha Rat and Bear’s Gamma Rat. Aaron is the more thoughtful and devious of Chase’s two football friends. There is a dark undercurrent to Aaron, who often expresses himself in dark and mysterious ways.

Aaron sincerely wants the old Chase to return and is never quite certain that Chase’s amnesia is real. Aaron speaks the book’s most ironic line when he chastises Chase for preventing another football player from bullying Brendan. Standing near Chase as the rest of the team walks away, Aaron says, “Next time, take a second to think about who your friends are” (84). Aaron is blind to the reality that the video kids have become Chase’s real friends. Aaron also has the distinction of being one of two key characters who experience no character development throughout the story, the other being Bear.

Bear is portrayed as the character with the least impulse control. He is large, powerful, and brutish. He consistently turns to Aaron for direction, now that Chase has turned a new leaf and offers no guidance. Bear cannot understand the changes that have occurred within Chase, and at times he attempts to beat Chase to make him come to his senses.

Korman portrays Bear as a character with no refinement, no thoughtfulness, and little apparent internal monologue. He is a hulking, physical person who embodies the traits of the typical bully. Like Aaron, he is a flat character who never experiences any growth. While Chase’s arc demonstrates that people are capable of change, Bear and Aaron’s lack of development suggests that this is not true of everyone.

Mr. Solway, as he is called by Chase and Shoshanna, is a Korean War veteran who received the Congressional Medal of Honor. His only knowledge of why he earned the medal came from onlookers, who told him he climbed a tank, opened the top turret, and dropped a grenade inside. He believes he cannot remember the occasion because, as he was told, he looked inside the tank after the grenade went off. His remark about stress-induced amnesia—“You block out what you can’t face” (97)—foreshadows what Chase eventually learns about himself.

Unlike Chase’s father and stepmother, who have names, Chase’s mother is simply “Mom” or “my mom.” This is unusual in that Chase immediately forms a bond with her after he wakes from his concussion. His relationship with her shows little of the awkward forgetfulness caused by the amnesia that is characteristic of his other relationships.

Korman supplies almost no information about Chase’s mother apart from the fact that she is mom. The text makes one reference to the fact that she works outside the home, though it reveals nothing else about her life, job, hobbies, family, or divorce from Chase’s father.

His mother is a very typical mom in that she tries, usually unsuccessfully, to control Chase’s behavior. She is supportive of her son and is quite anxious about his future behavior. The most intimate encounter between Chase and his mother occurs when he criticizes her for not telling him that a judge sentenced him to community service. She responds to this criticism, saying, “I’ve always seen the good in you, Chase, and I believe that’s the person you really are, deep down. But you’ve had your moments” (41). During this encounter, her hope that Chase will become a new person if he avoid encountering the previous Chase is evident.

Chase’s father Frank is the stereotypical sports dad whose primary purpose in life is watching his son repeat all the glory he experienced as a middle school football hero. Frank was a key player on Hiawassee’s only other championship team. His photo, along with Chase’s, adorns the principal’s office wall.

Frank is eager for the old Chase to return, even though he recognizes it will create problems and other negativity. He brags that he carried the same reputation and clout as Chase when he was in middle school. Riding together after Chase was disciplined for misbehavior, Frank boasts, “When I played, I had the whole faculty wrapped around my little finger” (177).

Perhaps surprisingly, Frank is one of the few adults who experiences change and growth throughout the book. Toward the end, he confesses to Chase that he recognizes the new person his son has become and that he admires him.

Younger than his sister by 14 minutes, Joel is the twin brother of Shoshanna. He only appears in text messages in the first half of the book, then in person when Shoshanna convinces her parents to allow him to return home from Melton Conservatory. He is fearful and angry at the outset of his return, believing he will once again be targeted by the school’s bullies.

Joel is a musical genius who recognizes the key of any spoken word or sound. Though he is a piano prodigy, he nevertheless felt out of place at Melton. Despite the bullying he experienced at Hiawassee, he feels it is where he belongs.

Joel’s transformation is second only to Chase’s and exceeds it in the sense that he never lost the memories of all he endured. Watching a video of Aaron and Bear spraying him with fire extinguisher foam, Joel has an epiphany that he is more than a bullying victim and that he will no longer stand for it. In the pivotal fight scene at the retirement home, while the other kids are settling things physically, Joel summons security and authority to end the dispute. Joel is Korman’s expression of how victims should perceive and deal with bullying.