Restore Me

Restore Me begins weeks after the end of Ignite Me, which culminates with Juliette killing Warner’s abusive father, Anderson. In Restore Me, Warner therefore must juggle various competing elements that vie for his attention: his new relationship with Juliette, figuring out his role in the new regime, and his complex feelings over the death of the father he hated. Warner insists that he doesn’t want to feel grief about his father’s loss, repeatedly telling himself that Anderson doesn’t deserve any emotional attention from his son. However, he finds that he cannot quell his feelings of grief, despite the painful history between father and son, and that trying to do so does not aid him.

Warner’s reluctance to grieve Anderson is further complicated by the way he was resolutely trained by his cruel father to believe that emotions constitute weakness. In this installment in the series, with his father dead and gone, Warner struggles to separate what he logically knows was manipulation on his father’s behalf—and his knowledge that his father’s methods and motivations were both corrupt—and the messages he has been taught to internalize. Warner thinks of Juliette, “I don’t want to share stories from my life that only disgust and revolt me, stories that would color her impression of me.