You've Changed - by Benoit Denizet-Lewis (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Benoit Denizet-Lewis comes a timely, provocative, and deeply moving exploration of personal transformation in a period of roiling uncertainty. You've Changed investigates how we remake ourselves--and how identity, belief, and belonging shift in a world that won't stop doing the same.

We live in an age obsessed with reinvention. On Instagram, in recovery meetings, through name-change petitions, lifestyle pivots, deconversion blogs, and political conversion manifestos, we're surrounded by stories of radical personal change. But what does it really mean to shed an old skin--and why do some transformations inspire us while others raise our hackles?

Longtime New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, known for his deeply reported and psychologically rich journalism, takes us on a freewheeling, wild-hearted journey into the mystery of human transformation. He introduces us to an unforgettable array of people in flux--including psychedelic reality benders, sexual and gender transitioners, ideological shapeshifters, seemingly reformed murderers, and an octogenarian grandmother trying to change her temperament ("Better late than never!" she says)--as well as those working to engineer change: psychologists, neuroscientists, name-change specialists, even his own father, a breath and meditation teacher who once wrote a newsletter about "the art and science of transformation." Intertwined with those portraits of change is the author's own reckoning--by turns painful, poignant, and hilarious--with his misfires and epiphanies.

You've Changed is a book for anyone who's ever tried to become someone new, fix what felt broken, drag someone else into changing, or wondered whether real transformation is anything more than a myth we sell ourselves. Denizet-Lewis shows us that profound, positive change is possible--and offers an unexpected, sometimes counterintuitive set of approaches to help us get there. But this is no compass for the dogmatic or the quick-fix brigade. Change, he shows us, is slippery, scary, beautiful, often politically fraught--and best tackled with humility riding shotgun, holding the map upside down.

Review Quotes

"People have been trying to figure out what the hell change is--how it happens, why it is so mysterious, whether it's good, bad, natural, or godly for as long as our species has strung words into sentences, ideas, and stories. With an eye for the paradoxical, ambiguous, and delightfully absurd, and that irresistible commitment to go all the way there with his subjects, Denizet-Lewis's wide-ranging study of change in an era when metamorphosis has become the head-spinning norm, is wonderfully reported, often hilarious, and unfailingly captivating." - Julian Brave NoiseCat, author of We Survived the Night, and director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Sugarcane
"You've Changed is immediately fascinating. In a world that flips fast, personal change can be elective, mandatory, or downright accidental. Benoit Denizet-Lewis takes us on a deeply-considered yet hilarious ride that explores the promises, challenges, validity, and possibility of transformation in all its forms. Read this book; you'll leave it changed for the better." - Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist, Boston University professor, and bestselling author
"In You've Changed, Benoit Denizet-Lewis combines reportage, research, and memoir in a fascinating and beautifully written book that captivated me from the first page. His thoughtful and thorough examination of change--if it's possible and how it happens--is endlessly thought provoking and inspiring. Read this book!" - David Sheff, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy