From the cover face with the upside down eyes, to the not quite ending, this book is a mystery, more conjecture and theory than hard facts. Thirteen years ago, the town of Switchcreek, Tennessee was struck by a terrible and confounding disease that killed a third of the population, mutating most of the survivors into one of three physical anomalies: those who experienced enormous growth to unprecedented heights, those who lost all their hair and became seal-like, and those who became abnormally obese. Paxton, a young teen when the "Changes" hit, was a "skip," one of the few not physically affected. His mother died, however, and his father became one of the obese "charlies," and after the quarantine on the town was lifted, Pax was sent away to live with relatives. Now an adult, living a dull, unambitious life in Chicago, Pax returns to Switchcreek for the funeral of one of his two best friends. Jo Lynn, who had become a seal-like beta, had been found hanging from a tree in her yard, a supposed suicide. But Pax and Deke, his other best friend and now a grotesquely tall argo, have their doubts. Back home after so many years away, Pax quickly discovers how much he's missed as more and more effects of the Changes manifested themselves.

This isn't the story of what happened in Switchcreek or why, although those questions are posed. Rather, it's the story of coping with such profound changes, how outsiders react to people who suddenly don't look human, how far people will go to live normal lives when normal doesn't mean what it once did, and the age-old question of what it means to be human. It's also the story of Pax trying to find his place in a world when he hasn't felt comfortable in his own skin since everything changed.

And it's the sort of book that makes me want a sequel. I want to spend more time with Pax and the people of Switchcreek. Gregory made me care about all of them. ( )

This was an interesting concept. The book was pretty good--not fantastic, but definitely a pleasant read. ( )

Pax, the preacher’s son, returns from the town he fled many years ago when one of his best childhood friends dies—apparently by suicide. Most of the people in the town were struck by a mysterious malady that converted them into argos (giant, mantislike beings), betas (red-skinned, hairless, and asexually reproducing), and charlies (short, extremely fat, and—in the case of mature males—producing a substance with narcotic effects, at least on other charlies). This last part incorporates a short story of Gregory’s, but changes it as well. There’s a lot of body horror, especially regarding the way that the charlie men produce the “vintage.” Pax is not a hero; he’s often cowardly, something of a drug addict, and in the end his story is about making compromises—including with corruption and violence—in order to preserve the possibility of a different though not necessarily better world. ( )

Ch-ch-changes

by Kel Munger

Daryl Gregory’s second book is every bit as intense, well-written and thought-provoking as his first, which means we must all wait patiently for more. It’s a rare thing to run across a writer of what Margaret Atwood calls “speculative fiction” who combines this level of intelligence with a matching dose of empathy. The Devil’s Alphabet involves a small Appalachian town that was visited with a strange plague. It altered the genetic makeup of most of its residents—but not in all the same ways. In fact, argos, betas and charlies are as different from each other as they are from unchanged humans. And now it’s happening again, in a country half a world away. We see the story unfold through the eyes of Pax Martin, who remained unchanged (physically, at least) by the disease. But he’s got another mystery to solve: Who killed his first love, a beta woman? This novel is worth staying up late to finish.

Reviewed for Sacramento News & Review: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/ch-ch-changes/content?oid=1335011 ( )

The fact that I couldn't finish this before it had to go back to the library tells me its not worth my time. I wanted to like it, but...couldn't. It wasn't horrible, or anything, just slow, with rather cardboard characters, and too much that was probably meant to be mysterious and ominous, but was really kind of tedious. ( )