Synopsis:
Her doctor is giving her the body of his dreams…and her nightmares.
Isa is a micro-celebrity who rarely shows her face, and can’t wait to have it expertly ripped off and rearranged to look more feminine. When a successful fundraiser makes her gender affirming surgery possible, she’s overjoyed—until she has to give up all her money to save her dying father.
Crushed by gender dysphoria and the pressure of disappointing her fans who paid for a new face, she answers a sketchy ad seeking transgender women for a free, experimental feminization treatment. The grotesquely flawless Dr. Skurm has gruesome methods, but he gets unbelievable results, and Isa is finally feeling comfortable in her skin. She even gains the courage to ask out her crush: an alluring and disfigured alchemy-obsessed artist named Rayna.
But Isa’s body won’t stop changing, and she’s going from super model to super mutant. She has to discover the secret behind her metamorphosis—before the changes are irreversible, and she’s an unwanted freak forever.
Review:
From the cinematic nightmares of Cronenberg, all the way to the dark imaginings of Clive Barker, body horror has always pushed the envelope, challenging our perceptions of normalcy and beauty. The genre revels in grotesque reactions and visceral transformations, and Eve Harms’ “Transmuted,” takes this even further, exploiting fears about bodily autonomy, struggles about identity, and the potential for our own flesh to turn against us. Complete with mad scientists, missing noses and melting clowns, and packed into a bite-sized 113 pages, it’s cringeworthy, it’s contemptible, perhaps even crude… but it’s also compulsively readable, and utterly enthralling. A spectacular addition to the “Rewind or Die,” series, this one is the perfect, putrid little novella to squeeze into pride month… it’s on kindle unlimited!
Isa is an online gamer and trans-woman, who has yet to undergo surgery. To her amazement however, fellow streamers have been promoting her channel, and the donations from fans have been rolling in. Along with what Isa’s earned from her job as a barista, she can just about scrape together the $30,000 dollars she needs to undergo FFS (facial-feminization surgery). Devastatingly, moments after reaching her target the universe throws a cruel curve-ball her way, and she receives a phone call from her sister. Her father (who refuses to accept his transgender daughter) has stage 4 cancer that has spread to his bladder, and can only be treated with an experimental procedure. An experimental procedure that happens to cost exactly $30,000. Having been manipulated by her family into giving up the donated money, but terrified of the court of public opinion, and suffering from crippling body dysmorphia, when Isa stumbles across an advert offering experimental feminization surgery for free, she’s not difficult to convince. As you can well imagine though, the results are not quite what she anticipates.
Definitely a good recommendation for fans of “Black Mirror,” and bodily fluids, I really can’t express to you just how wacky things get toward the end. There’s plot twists, alchemy, ancient rituals, and one of the most bizarre sex scenes I’ve ever blindly stumbled across. It’s an extreme novella. The whole thing is sticky and oozy and nasty and wet from beginning to end, and unapologetically so.
Most importantly, “Transmuted,” delves into discussions surrounding the trans experience, the fetishization of trans people, and most explicitly, body dysmorphia. Even prior to her risky FFS, Isa’s story highlights the intense pressure from others to surgically transition, and the huge financial burden that comes with gender-affirming procedures. Her urgent need for surgery is, of course, more than a quest for physical transformation, rather a deep-seated need to align her external appearance with her internal identity. The fact her desperation leads her to undergo such a risky procedure perhaps ultimately condemns the notion that trans bodies must conform to specific standards to be deemed valid. The real-world pressures on trans individuals to achieve “passability,” often at great personal/ financial cost. Eve Harms masterfully uses the lens of body horror to critique these dynamics, challenging us to reconsider our perceptions and treatment of trans individuals.
Wrapping on up, Eve Harms’ “Transmuted,” is a potent cocktail of body horror and societal commentary, that’s as stomach churning as it is introspective. If you can make it past the rather exotic erotica, this is very fast-paced and like nothing you’ve had the displeasure of reading before… couldn’t recommend it enough!
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