Journalist and bestselling author Benoit Denizet-Lewis explores how we remake ourselves—our behaviors and identities, our political and spiritual outlooks, and the very shape of our personalities. What does it take to change even as we search for our footing in an era of profound upheaval and roiling uncertainty?

As obsessed as we are with change, as much as we love a good makeover story, we’re also often wildly suspicious of those who claim to have pulled it off. With his trademark curiosity, empathy, humor, and intimate, character-rich reporting, Denizet-Lewis confronts our ambivalent relationship with change by taking us inside the lives of people who’ve transformed themselves—or say they have.

From psychedelic reality benders to political converters to gender transitioners, from a seemingly transformed murderer to a bully-turned-Buddhist and an octogenarian grandmother trying to change her temperament (“Better late than never!” she says), he investigates the many ways we try to reimagine ourselves—and what’s at stake when we do.

We tend to picture change as linear and self-determined, but Denizet-Lewis shows that much of what we think we know is wrong. Profound change is often less self-reinvention than self-discovery, and personal change isn’t always so personal—it’s better understood as a hazardous team sport. Our attempts to change are frequently politically fraught, shaped by incoherent cultural beliefs about who is allowed to change, and who we think is even capable of it.

Drawing on insights from psychologists, neuroscientists, spiritual teachers—even the author’s own father, who once edited a newsletter devoted to “the art and science of transformation”—You’ve Changed challenges us to think more deeply about what real change looks like. How does it happen? When can we trust it, in ourselves and in each other? And what shifts, or stays the same, when we shed an old skin?

Through the surprising and captivating stories of Americans in flux—and a freewheeling inventory of the author’s own misfires and epiphanies—You’ve Changed is essential listening for anyone who’s ever wanted to change something meaningful about themselves, or someone they love.