Change

by Édouard Louis
Change cover
Good Books rating 4.18
Psychology and Human Behavior
Technical:
  • ID: 453
  • Added: 2025-09-11
  • Updated: 2025-09-12
  • ISBN: 9781787303263
  • Publisher: Harvill Secker
  • Published: 2024-02-08
  • Formats: 6
  • Reviews: 3
Buy online
Waterstones
Paperback • £9.99

Change delves into the profound impact of life's turning points, examining how people navigate uncertainty and personal growth. The narrative goes beyond mere plot, offering insights into human behavior and the forces that drive adaptation in challenging circumstances. Through compelling storytelling, the book highlights the emotional and psychological dimensions of change, inviting readers to reflect on their own experiences of transformation. It combines thoughtful analysis with engaging prose to illuminate the universal nature of change and its role in shaping identity.

Reviews
Goodreads · 2025-09-11
poignant 4.30

The book is a poignant exploration of social class and identity, showing the painful cost of Louis’s climb and his complex feelings about his heritage and transformation.

This review underscores the emotional and sociological depth of Louis’s journey, particularly his struggle to learn and inhabit the social codes of the bourgeoisie, which often clashes with his working-class roots. It also highlights the book as a kind of thank-you and apology to those affected by his desire to change, revealing a layered and self-reflective narrative that balances ambition with vulnerability. The reviewer finds it especially valuable for readers interested in social theory and personal transformation.

Quick quotes

    It is painful what Louis endures to learn the social codes of different classes, and how much he wants to belong.

    He slowly comes to realize this.

    This book is also a thank you note and an apology to the people in Louis' life that were affected by his desire to change.

BookBrowse · 2025-09-11
compelling 4.00

Louis’s narrator is rigorously honest and monomaniacal, driven by a desire to leave his past behind and prove himself better than those who underestimated him.

The review highlights the narrator’s obsessive drive to transform himself and escape his origins, portraying this as a painful but purposeful process. While some of the nuanced character complexity from Louis’s earlier works is less present, the reviewer finds the book compelling due to the narrator’s brutal self-honesty and determination. The story is seen as a tribute to the narrator’s relentless effort to honor his life through hard work and personal reinvention.

Quick quotes

    Everything he does is motivated by a single obsession: to become someone else.

    I loved Change and its monomaniacal narrator: his rigorous honesty, his physical inability to lie to himself about what he wants or what he will accept.

    Édouard the narrator sees everything he does as a definitive break, a border crossing between his past and his future.

The Brooklyn Rail · 2024-03-03
intense 4.25

Louis’s narrative explores the tension and cost of social mobility, highlighting his dual emotional access across class divides and the personal sacrifices made to reinvent himself.

This review appreciates Louis’s candid and intense portrayal of his transformation journey, emphasizing how his success required breaking ties with loved ones and adopting a sometimes harsh, even violent, self-reinvention. The narrative style mirrors this urgency and complexity, blending vernacular and intellectual references, and resisting simplistic notions of individual resilience by acknowledging the roles of others in his story. The reviewer notes Louis’s reluctance to claim credit for poetic intentions, instead showing a raw, honest engagement with his past and present.

Quick quotes

    At each stage of this life, of this race against myself, I’ve had to break with people I loved in order to move forward.

    I needed arrogance and violence to rid myself of the past.

    My story is the story of their will and generosity.

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