TG Book Review: Mall of Change by Lisa Change

I've been aware of Lisa Change for some time now, since she's one of the more prolific authors in the self-published TG fiction scene. But I love a good transformation story set in the (increasingly anachronistic) environs of a shopping mall, so I gave Mall of Change a shot.

The story follows a southern politician named Roy Anderson who might seem somewhat familiar if you pay attention to political news in the United States. He likes to go to the mall to ogle teenage girls, and as we learn in some flashbacks, sometimes do more than ogle, with deadly results. Because Roy's feelings about teenage girls are complicated; he's attracted to them, but there's a strong, deep undercurrent of loathing for women and teen girls in particular.

Which is what makes the story so interesting when he's transformed into one.

I think it's safe to say that the majority of male-to-female gender transformation fiction features protagonists who, often out of some kind of misogyny—whether it's the immature "girls are icky" or the chauvinistic "women are inferior"—are unhappy about becoming women. But in my experience, it's rarely the kind of overt misogyny we get from Roy's internal monologue. He's a thoroughly awful character.

And as a result, it's satisfying to see the changes he goes through as a kind of body horror rather than the usual titillation. It's satisfying for things to happen to him that might break stories that weren't about punishing such terrible behavior.

It's hard to call this story fun, but it is nice to see some supernatural comeuppance to a very real-world kind of creep, and to believe even for a moment in a sense of cosmic justice. It's a short, easy read, and the subject matter means it stays pretty PG-13 in terms of content. It's available on Amazon as a single book, or as part of an anthology called Trapped as a Beautiful Girl. Other works by Lisa Change are also available on Smashwords.

TG Book Review: The Freshman Experience by Maxwell Avoi

(Originally posted on Tumblr)

In an attempt to make this Tumblr a little more than just captions, I’m going to post occasional reviews of TF-related stories I’ve read. I finished The Freshman Experience recently, and had to share my thoughts.

I’m a big fan of universes where stuff like magic is integrated into everyday life, and of various schools of witchcraft and wizardry, so that’s what drew me to give this story a shot. Avoi does well with it, following a college freshman at a magic university who falls prey to an upperclassman prank. The prank involves some fun (and seriously sexy) transformations, and the protagonist works with other affected freshmen to try to unravel the spell they’ve fallen under before it’s too late. 

The book is full of good ideas, with interesting uses of magic that create a very dynamic status quo, and a series of ticking time bombs for the protagonist. The relationships between the affected freshmen feel very well-realized, and are not what you normally see in magical gender transformation erotica stories. By giving us a large group of similarly-transformed people, Avoi’s able to explore characters in more depth than a typical Fictionmania “I’ve turned into a girl, this is how it affects my friends/family/significant other” fashion. 

There are a few issues. Avoi’s juggling a lot of characters here, and all the transformed freshmen have both male and female names. As a result, there are several passages where Avoi mixes up two similar names of different characters. It’s a minor thing, but speaks to the value of close editing. There are some mind control/alteration aspects that make for dubious-at-best consent in some of the sex scenes, which squicks me out a bit. Finally, the plot resolves somewhat abruptly (and a bit too tidily), and rests on something that should have occurred to the characters early on. It’s a bit too deus ex machina, and makes the work done by the protagonist & his pals throughout largely a red herring. 

Despite those issues, I really did like The Freshman Experience, and I’d be very interested to see more from this universe. Avoi has a fun style that fits well with my particular interests, and this is my favorite thing I’ve read of his so far. You can get it at Amazon as a solo ebook for $3.99, or in the Fantastic Variations bundle with four other stories for just a dollar more!

TG Book Review: Transformed: MtF Body Transformation Punishment by M Wills

I've seen M Wills around a lot when I've been browsing for new TG content on Amazon. Transformed stuck out to me because after growing up in the '90s and reading a ton of Spells 'R' Us stories, I've got a soft spot for people being transformed in a mall setting. Transformed follows five male friends who upset the wizard proprietor of a mall magic shop, and end up transformed into pop-culture-inspired women with a ticking clock and some difficult obstacles on their way back to masculinity.

I generally enjoyed this story. It was a little short, as these one-off Kindle TG stories often are, and in the beginning I had a hard time keeping track of which character was which. They're given fairly broad personalities and we don't spend too much time with them pre-transformation, so I ended up going back to the beginning a few times just to remind myself who was who. As someone who's also writing a story about five transformed guys, I know the struggle.

Of the five transformations, I recognized the sources for three, which were pretty easy to identify. I couldn't place the other two, which might just mean I'm not familiar with the sources, or might indicate that they're a bit less specifically inspired than the others. Aside from one very specific actress reference, it'd be easy to imagine that this story is set in the '90s, since two of the significant reference characters would have been more recognizable then.

The transformations themselves happen a little too quickly for my taste, and it would have been nice to linger a bit more on some aspects of them. There's a character with some extra parts that don't really get enough attention.

There's a ticking clock to the characters' struggle, and a deceptively easy task for them to accomplish to recover their manhood. I won't give away the ending, but I thought the obstacles thrown in their way were generally pretty fun.

Overall, Transformed is a fun little book that'll resonate with you if you like a little bit of pop culture in your transformation stories, but it could have benefited from spending a little more time on most of the story elements. I look forward to checking out more of M Wills' books.