52 pages • 1-hour read
Restore Me
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Character Analysis
Juliette Ferrars
Seventeen-year-old Juliette Ferrars is one of the narrators and the protagonist of Restore Me. The beginning of the novel shows Juliette fresh off a triumph at the end of Ignite Me, the previous book of the series. She has successfully killed her enemy, Anderson, and has taken over Sector 45. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Aaron Warner, is finally established. She finds this satisfaction is short-lived, however, as she learns that she is less prepared to lead Sector 45—let alone all of North America—than she anticipated during her triumphant declaration of her intention to serve as supreme commander.
Throughout the novel, Juliette works to contend with two major considerations that affect how she sees herself as an individual and as a leader. The first of these has to do with her lack of experience. Unlike Warner (and later, the children of the other supreme commanders), Juliette has had a fractured education. She spent much of her adolescence in an asylum, which she increasingly recalls as the novel goes on. She feels overwhelmed by the numerous tasks and many things she must learn to comprehend the complex geopolitical orientation of her new rule. When she sees Warner and other contemporaries speak of these geopolitical contexts without hesitation, she becomes increasingly doubtful of her own abilities. She struggles to think of experience as something she could gain over time, particularly as her self-doubt deepens.
The second obstacle that Juliette faces is the revelation that her memories are not reliable representations of her past but rather a result of machinations by The Reestablishment, which has been performing experiments upon her since she was a child. She learns over the latter half of the novel that she is very likely the daughter of the supreme commander of Oceania, as the novel implies but does not fully confirm this. Her name is Ella, she has an older sister named Emmaline, and she knew Warner and Nazeera when she was a child. The Reestablishment erased these childhood memories when Juliette’s parents turned her over for experimentation after Emmaline manifested powerful psychokinetic abilities. Juliette learns Emmaline is still being tortured by The Reestablishment.
Juliette reacts to these revelations by withdrawing from her allies, particularly her boyfriend, Warner, with whom she breaks up when she learns that he has been keeping secrets about her background. This withdrawal is born partially of pride, as she doesn’t wish to reveal her ignorance to other, more educated young people. It is also partially because of hurt feelings, increasing her stressors. In the novel’s climax, The Reestablishment takes advantage of Juliette’s overwhelm by manipulating her into using her powers to kill hundreds of Reestablishment officers. They then take advantage of the chaos to abduct her to a child’s room that appears to belong to a child, Ella, in Oceania, though the novel ends on a cliffhanger before this can be confirmed.
Aaron Warner
Nineteen-year-old Aaron Warner is one of the narrators of Restore Me and Juliette’s love interest in the novel. Warner, as he is known to everyone besides Juliette, is the former commander of Sector 45, though he has willingly ceded command to Juliette following the events at the end of Ignite Me.
In Restore Me, Warner deals with his complex grief following the death of his abusive father, Anderson. While Warner does not blame Juliette for murdering his violent father, he nevertheless finds himself grieving the man who tortured him throughout his life. Anderson’s influence continues to color his son’s self-perception. Though Warner logically understands that his father was corrupt and misguided, he has internalized several of his father’s teachings, specifically the idea that emotion is weakness. Warner displays unreasonably high expectations of himself; whenever something goes wrong for Juliette or her allies, he blames himself for not foreseeing the threats against her. He blames this oversight in turn for his emotional turmoil following his father’s death, something that he repeatedly frames as being self-indulgent. He judges himself harshly for having a panic disorder.
While Warner, like Juliette, is perpetually plagued with self-doubt, his comes more from his fears of emotional or moral inadequacy rather than Juliette’s fears about incompetence. He worries that his abusive upbringing has damaged his capacity for emotion, despite his overwhelming love for Juliette. Though Juliette had committed violence, he continually sees her as unassailably good. He explains Juliette’s violence as necessary but does not extend himself the same leniency, even in cases where there is significant overlap between their circumstances. Warner opts for secrecy more frequently than honesty and often struggles to understand why his girlfriend would be interested in hearing details about his past, even when she doesn’t specifically request them. Though he admits the truth to Juliette when she asks or when it becomes necessary, this overall tendency toward secrecy creates distrust between the two romantic partners, something that culminates in their breakup when Warner reveals that he hid details of Juliette’s past from her. While Juliette’s memories were confirmed as erased by The Reestablishment, the state of Warner’s memories is less clear; they are sometimes implied to be tampered with, sometimes not.
Warner is Juliette’s most unshakeable supporter in the novel, though his manner of showing support is sometimes framed as misguided. He intends to show he believes in her by not helping her, which often leaves her without the necessary information to make choices as a leader. Though the novel ends on a cliffhanger, as Juliette’s deadly outburst in the novel’s climax isn’t explained, the arc of the text suggests that The Reestablishment can manipulate Juliette at least in part due to her separation from Warner.
Kenji Kishimoto
Kenji Kishimoto is Juliette’s best friend and sidekick in Restore Me. Kenji is often framed as a comic relief character, and his relationship with Juliette is based in playful banter which the two often compare to a sibling-like relationship. Kenji is outspoken and affable, thus providing a sharp contrast to Warner; though Kenji and Warner are the two closest people to Juliette, they struggle against her attempts to make them become friends. Kenji recalls Warner’s actions in the first three novels of the series, in which he was a Reestablishment officer, which leads to mistrust. Warner finds Kenji ridiculous and irritating. The two, in a twist, come to a détente after tensions peak between Juliette and Warner, leading to their breakup. When Warner has a panic attack, Kenji helps him through it.
In this installment in the series, Kenji serves as a supporting character rather than one with a substantial narrative arc of his own. He frequently steps into a mentorship role for Juliette, offering her advice on how to progress as a political leader. Despite Kenji’s inexperience in this area, the novel frames his advice as sensible. He also offers a more knowing perspective on racism in the pre-Reestablishment world; when Juliette expresses nostalgia for that era, Kenji reminds her that racist and classist tensions led to a political climate where The Reestablishment could easily take control.
Kenji also experiences minor friction in this text with his own mentor, Castle, with whom he has been shown in previous installments to have a parent-child relationship. In Restore Me, Kenji and Castle interact very minimally, and Kenji grows upset when he learns that Castle has kept important information from him regarding Juliette’s past. Kenji is foreshadowed as having a potential upcoming romantic relationship with Nazeera, whom he meets in this installment. Though Kenji’s flirtation is played for comic relief, the parallel between his powers and Nazeera’s suggests that a romance for them might come to pass in future books.
Nazeera Ibrahim
Nazeera Ibrahim is the daughter of the supreme commander of Asia. She ultimately emerges as an ally to Juliette, though her status is unclear when she first appears in the text alongside her brother, Haider. Nazeera is openly hostile to The Reestablishment, something she shows through her choice to wear a Muslim head scarf, which is illegal under The Reestablishment’s regime. Nazeera frames her choice to wear the scarf as an act of defiance and feminist ideology, as she rejects the notion that men should be permitted to dictate how women should dress. Juliette finds herself regularly admiring Nazeera, not only for her bravery when resisting the totalitarian rule that she was raised in, but also for her beauty, poise, and fashion sense. Nazeera’s casual references to speaking multiple languages well enough that she has read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy in three languages (English, Russian, and French) make Juliette feel insecure and unworthy of her leadership role.
Nazeera puts herself in a protective role over Juliette, despite Juliette’s insistence that she doesn’t need a bodyguard, given her super strength. Nazeera nevertheless offers political advice and warnings about The Reestablishment’s machinations. Juliette is happy when Nazeera understands why Juliette is romantically interested in Warner—something that none of Juliette’s other allies can understand. Nazeera also reveals that she, too, has superpowers; she can fly and turn invisible. The latter of these powers is identical to Kenji’s power, indicating that there might be a future romance between the two, despite Nazeera’s rejection of Kenji’s flirtations in this installment.
Nazeera comments that Juliette seems familiar to her, though she cannot place her. Later in the novel, Juliette learns that she and Nazeera knew one another as children, when Juliette was known as Ella and was being raised by her biological parents. The novel is not clear whether this means that Nazeera has had her memories erased, too, or whether this uncertain memory is merely because the two girls were separated as children.
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