Restart

Written by: Gorden Korman

Why you should read this book: Chase Ambrose awakens in a hospital bed with no knowledge of his own life: he doesn't remember falling off his roof, he doesn't know his own mother, and he can't recognize his face in the mirror. As he heals, he tries to put together the mystery of his identity, only to gradually realize that he was a terrible excuse for a human being before the accident, and that almost everyone he knows hates or fears him. Now he has a choice: try to get his old life back, or try to become a less reprehensible person before it's too late to change.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Its depiction of how amnesia caused by traumatic brain injury works is based more on popular culture than science or reality: it is unlikely that a person could lose their entire sense of self and all personal memories to become a tabula rasa personality but still retain the rest of their knowledge about the world and not suffer any cognitive deficits.