"A blazingly smart, thoughtful, funny, and moving book about the endless hope--and the occasional limits--of human transformation." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and All the Way to the River
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.
About the Author :
Benoit Denizet-Lewis is an associate professor at Emerson College and a longtime contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He has written three previous books, including America Anonymous and the New York Times bestseller Travels With Casey. A New America Fellow and NEH Public Scholar, he divides his time between Boston and Prague.
Review :
"Combining shrewd analysis and evocative reportage, [You've Changed] offers an entertaining and insightful take on humanity's unappeasable drive to be different. Readers will be riveted."
--Publishers Weekly
"What a blazingly smart, funny, thoughtful, and moving book about the endless hope--and the occasional limits--of human transformation. In You've Changed, Benoit Denizet-Lewis takes us right into the trembling heart of how tempting it is to try to change your life. Using examples from all walks of existence, he shows the lengths we will go to in our efforts to become better, different, or even unrecognizable new versions of ourselves. Ultimately, I found this to be a deeply humane book, offering the reader both permission to evolve and compassion for the times it might not quite work the way we hoped."
--Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and All the Way to the River
"The question of whether we believe people can change is as fundamental as the question of whether we believe in God. In You've Changed, Benoit Denizet-Lewis finds a way to ask new questions of that eternal question, and to turn his search for answers into an urgent and unifying narrative for our distracted and divisive time. I read You've Changed with rapt interest and delight. But I also read the hell out of it--I annotated it, underlined it, dog-eared it, and scribbled in its margins, because I couldn't help but find myself in it. You will too."
--Tom Junod, two-time National Magazine Award winner and author of In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man
"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
"It's hard to change, but harder to know how. What changes are good, and real, and which are embarrassing or dangerous mistakes? This fascinating and revelatory book should be read by anyone tempted by promises of painless transformation."
--Larissa MacFarquhar, New Yorker staff writer and author of Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help
"Few things are harder in life than undergoing change. In this eye-opening book, Benoit Denizet-Lewis brings the curiosity and perception that make him one of our best nonfiction writers to the topic of personal reinvention. With sympathy for his subjects and admirable vulnerability about his own life, he explores areas of change--behavioral, political, sexual--with sensitivity, introspection, and humor. Reading this book will change you for the better."
--James Kirchick, New York Times bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
"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
"Benoit is a remarkable writer and a journalist of the first order, as You've Changed proves yet again. This is a deeply reported, keenly intelligent, beautifully written book that will--to invert the phrasing used by one of the many fascinating changers Benoit introduces us to--open a head pathway into your heart."
--Kevin Sessums, author of Mississippi Sissy and I Left it on the Mountain
"Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a born storyteller who writes with great wisdom and wit. I loved his new book on change, a central obsession of our era that he thankfully rescues from easy-answer evangelists. He shows that deep down we all want to leave our same old selves--so long as we don't have to change too much."
--Deborah Solomon, journalist and author of American Mirror
"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."
--Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist, Boston University professor, and bestselling author
"Buddhism teaches us about the inherent impermanence of our existence, but when it comes to actively changing who we are and how we relate to the world, it doesn't always feel like that mutability always applies to us. In You've Changed, Denizet-Lewis digs into why and how people change, reminding us that it's never too late to be the versions of ourselves we long to become."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life
