Restore Me

Tahereh Mafi is an American author known for young adult (YA) and middle grade books. Mafi is the child of Iranian immigrants; she has discussed in interviews how this history, as well as her identity as a Muslim woman, affect her writing (Nordstrom, Leigh. “Tahereh Mafi Writes of Being a Muslim Woman in Post 9/11 America.” WWD, 19 Aug. 2021). Mafi also writes about how wearing a hijab makes her feel empowered: “For me, a hijab […] feels like a kind of armor I wear when I face the world and it makes me feel good about myself, and it makes me feel strong, and I like the way I feel when I wear it” (“YA Author Tahereh Mafi Explains Why She Views Fashion as Armor.” The Zoe Report, 5 Feb. 2019). This discussion of how her hijab feels like an element of personal expression parallels Restore Me. The character Nazeera speaks about her choice to wear a headscarf despite prohibitions by The Reestablishment against religion.

Mafi is based in Southern California, the same territory covered by Sector 45 in Restore Me. She is married to YA fiction writer Ransom Riggs, who is best known for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Mafi’s first novel was 2011’s Shatter Me, first introduced as a trilogy. It was subsequently followed by 2013’s Unravel Me and 2014’s Ignite Me. Mafi subsequently announced three further books in the series: Restore Me (2018), Defy Me (2019), and Imagine Me (2020). This second trilogy, which features the same characters as the first Shatter Me trilogy, is sometimes framed as its own separate series, given its enclosed narrative arc, and sometimes included in longer lists of the full Shatter Me sextet. The Shatter Me series also includes five novellas (2012-2021), which feature the points of view of various secondary characters.

Mafi has announced a spinoff series, The New Republic, which takes place in the same world as the Shatter Me books. The first installment, Watch Me, is slated for 2025. It will feature James Anderson (who is known as James Kent in Restore Me) and take place 10 years after the end of the Shatter Me series. Mafi also has two additional series. The This Woven Kingdom series ran from 2022 until 2024. The fantasy setting in the trilogy draws from Islamic tradition and presents a world in which humans and Jinn coexist. Mafi’s Furthermore duology is a middle grade fantasy series inspired by The Secret Garden (1910) by Frances Hodgson Burnett and The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis.

Mafi has authored two standalone novels. Her first standalone, 2018’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea, was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. It tells the story of teenage Muslim Shirin, who faces Islamophobia and xenophobia following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Mafi cites the text as drawing from her own experience as the Muslim child of immigrants in post-2001 America. An Emotion of Great Delight (2021) is Mafi’s only other standalone novel, as well as her only other publication in contemporary fiction.