I did enjoy most stories, but at the same time, most of them felt fairly forgettable. However, three stories did stand out to me: Bite the Hand by Nik Traxler and Pinar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloys, Genderella by Mason Deaver, and the final story, The Door to the Other Side by Emery Lee. This final one was my absolute favourite, which I honestly expected because I love Emery Lee.

This book truly is magical. But like magic, not all forms work for all people. And in this odd metaphor, not all of the stories in this anthology worked for me. Of course, that's probably to be expected with an anthology, so I'll stick to the positives. I really enjoyed the various magic systems and the characters and the romances. I think it would have maybe been more up my alley if the stories were interconnected, but that's simply my opinion. Overall, I enjoyed the book and I'll be looking up more by these authors!

(Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change upon final publication.)

Thank you, Net Gallery, for the advanced copy of this book. This is a collection of stories about young witches and wizards and navigating the teen years. I would definitely recommend. There is some discussion of identity, mostly discussion on magic.

There are a lot of good stories within this book! Each one was special in their own right but some where better than others and I found myself unable to finish some of them. Which is why I am only giving a 4/5

I really hope to see more of these books in the future and hopefully some of these authors write full story books!

Thank you Netgalley for the early access!

I LOVED so many of the stories that were included in this book.

loved:
- The character development drove the story in many of these tales and it was done so well in the majority of them.
- How unique yet connected each story was
- The different ways they tackle similar situations
-The representation was unreal and absolutely magical

Disliked:
- Some stories were not as immersive and i found myself waiting for them to end so I could start a new one.
- Wished some stories were a FULL book instead of just a few chapters

OVERALL, I enjoyed most stories. It is always challenging to rate a book with many short stories.

Transmogrify! was a wonderful collection of short stories. I really enjoyed the stories and the diversity present. This was a wonderful diverse and necessary collection of stories that deserve to be out in the world.

As a trans person myself, this collection of short stories was so refreshing to read!

I admittedly have some mixed feelings about it, as with most collections of short stories, since there were stories I didn't enjoy as much (e.g. Origin Story). However, these were outweighed by the ones I loved with all my heart (e.g. Halloween Love, Verity).

The representation was, being own voices so of course, very well done in most of the stories and I found myself squealing with happiness of being able to see myself in a book multiple times.

One tiny complaint I have is that I noticed some characters that are explicitly stated using several sets of pronouns (e.g. he/they) being referred to with only one of them. Despite there having been no implications that this is the character's preference.
I have noticed this in other books too, it does not seem to be an uncommon thing and, in fact, the authors I've seen do this use she/they themselves so this is a little confusing. I personally use he/they and would very much like people to refer to me with both.
I do not think this is wrong in any way since everyone has their own preferences and they should be respected. However, if you're going to introduce a character who uses he/they pronouns and only refer to them as "he" in the narrative, I'd prefer the reason why to be discussed.

Then again "Verity" introduced a character with he/she/they pronouns and used all of them interchangeably (which made me very happy).

Overall, I'd definitely recommend this book! Especially if you too are a trans person and looking for stories to see yourself in, but also if you're cis and trying to understand trans struggles better.

+ I'd recommend to jump to the next short story if you're not enjoying the one you're currently reading. I made the mistake of sticking to the first short story for way too long and lost my interest in reading this at all for a while.

Overall, this was such a lovely and magical collection of short fantastical stories! I loved seeing how much imagination was put into each story. Some of the stories stood out more than others, I really loved Dragons Name Themselves. The concept, the authors, the representation, and the creativity is what makes this book shine so much. I also really love the cover art!

When I first heard about this anthology, I was super excited. While I’ve been able to find quite a few trans/non-binary books and authors, I’m always on the lookout for more, and this anthology seemed like the perfect way to find a bunch of new authors at once!

Unfortunately, this anthology didn’t entirely work for me. While there were definitely a few stand-out stories, the large majority didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I always run into this issue with anthologies, where I’ll find a few good stories, but also quite a few that don’t end up working for me. This one had less of a balance of usual, where there were more stories I felt myself not connecting with than ones I did connect with. I do still generally like the concept, though, and will undoubtedly be checking out the individual novels of some of the authors!

I think overall, there was just a bit too much going on. A lot of the stories required a lot of world-building to fully understand them, and while I normally love that, it doesn’t work so well in an anthology. When there are so many short stories that each rely on a lot of build-up in a row, it feels more like you’re jumping from world to world without ever fully getting the chance to dive in. It felt like most of my reading time was spent understanding whatever new world I was in, and not truly understanding the characters or story itself.

I also thought that for a book about ‘trans magic’, meant to be highlighting both non-binary and trans voices, it felt like the stories were largely about non-binary characters. Now, I’m non-binary myself, so I do love seeing this much representation, but it also felt like the anthology didn’t spend a lot of time on other trans identities. Now, I know one anthology isn’t going to be able to check all the boxes, but I feel like a different title or tagline might’ve made sense.

Overall, while I did generally enjoy this anthology and found some more authors to check out, it just didn’t entirely work for me as an individual book.

Review will go live on my blog on July 7th

So many wonderful stories full of magic and joy.
Magic is for everyone!-
There are so many different types of short stories in this anthology with different types of magic systems, social structures and situations. I love the mythical creatures that were noted with dragons, jinn and ancient kings. Even a story that included chakra magic.
Thank you harperteen for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

As is the case with all collections of short stories, this one was hit or miss. I think the short format and focus on trans characters made it hard to create compelling stories that weren't explicitly about gender identity (or at least not more than that) and which weren't, to some degree, depressing. In a longer format some of these stories might have allowed for more robust world building, which in turn might have made them stories feel less cookie cutter. That being said, we'll certainly buy a copy for the library as it may well serve as a great gateway text for students to discover other trans authors

This was such a cool and lovely set of fantasy novellas, all of them with trans / non-binary / gender fluid MCs. There are 14 stories by 14 different authors, each of them portraying different experiences, different kinds of cool magics (mythology, magic schools, magical sport competitions, dragons etc.) and lots of cool friendships and relationships. There's even a Cinderella retelling in there!

TWs (taken from the content warnings in the book) - misgendering, transphobia, body horror, mention of suicide, fantasy violence

-- ty to the authors, the editor, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

I love all the world of trans magic portrayed in this book but some stories did fall flat for me. If I had to pick I would say that Origin Story was my favorite out of all of them by far.

I really loved this collection and think that it will be a great addition to our school library! Our kids are really into fantasy and I know they will love these tales.

I'm rating this a 4, though I found a lot of the stories here to be in that 3.5-4 range; quite alright and good but nothing particularly interesting or new. The first half dragged a bit and I found myself bored with some of the stories, though I found a lot of really amazing stories in the second half, including Genderella by Mason Deaver and Espejismos by Dove Salvatierra, which I found to be absolute standouts. I think this is good collection overall, and I think stories I found lacking may be more appealing to teens, so I would recommend it to those interested. I also want to shout out that while I appreciated the amount of non-binary representation here, the vast majority of representation was transmasc and I do wish we had gotten more than one (1) story about a trans girl. Still, I did enjoy this. I know short story collections can be hard to market to the YA crowd, so I hope this one finds its audience.

Individual story ratings:
Origin Story, Saundra Mitchell - 4
Halloween Love, Sonora Reyes - 4
Verity, Renée Reynolds - 3.5
Dragons Name Themselves, R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy - 4
High Tide, Francesca Tacchi - 4.5
In a Name, Ayida Shonibar - 4
Bite the Hand, Nik Traxler and Pinar Sinopoulos-Lloyd - 3
If I can't have love, I want power, g. haron davis - 4
The Hallow King, Jonathan Lenore Kastin - 5
Genderella, Mason Deaver - 5
Seagulls and Other Birds of Prey, Ash Nouveau - 5
Bend the Truth, Break it Too, Cam Montgomery - 3
Espejismos, Dove Salvatierra - 5
The Door to the Other Side, Emery Lee - 5

A must-purchase anthology featuring short stories centering trans and gender-nonconforming voices. While each story features its own fantasy world. Stories span the ancient to contemporary and everyday to otherworldly. Each story creates much needed space for queer and trans magic to bloom. Put this into the hands of everyone who has ever wished to see themselves and world transformed. A must purchase for all high school and public libraries.

This book has it all, from meddling buildings to kids getting kicked out of magic school to tales of triumph as trans kids break the magic gender binary. There is a lot of trans joy and triumph in this book and it was a lot of fun to read. There were so many different styles and types of magic and the worlds in these stories were interesting and fun. I really enjoyed reading this book.

My biggest complaint about this book was that since they were so short and the magic systems had to be developed, that we didn’t get as much about the characters. That’s the thing about short stories though, so I guess it was to be expected.

I love short stories. I love magic and fantasy. I love excellent transgender and nonbinary representation in literature (and everywhere else). And lucky me...this anthology hits all of those marks! Do yourself a favor and add this to your TBR. I will certainly be checking out the contributors for other works by them. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Anthologies are always tough to rate because you inevitably enjoy some pieces more than others. That was the case with Transmogrify! First of all, I love the concept of this anthology, and any kind of queer fantasy or sci-fi is an immediate draw for me. Second, look at that adorable cover art. I love it!

Overall, this was a fun collection of stories that range from sentient mirrors to baby dragons. However, I'm going to be honest and say that I skimmed through some of the stories. I wasn't fully engaged with a lot of the writing. A few stories felt very rushed or disjointed, while others felt like workshopped drafts of fan fic. Nothing against fan fic, it's just not my thing personally so I wasn't into it.

I can't imagine that short stories are easy to write. I saw a lot of potential in all of these pieces. With a little workshopping and more experience, I think the stories I didn't particularly enjoy could really shine.

This is just my opinion, so if you enjoy cute fantasy stories and diverse queer POVs, give this anthology a read.

Transmogrify! is an anthology of 14 stories by trans authors about trans magic.
As it often happens with anthology not all the stories were as good as the next but I really liked some of them. Some really were a hit for me, some were more forgettable even as I finished them. Overall though, a good book. I enjoyed it a lot overall and I would love to put this book in as many hands as possible. If you like anthologies, you really should check out this one. While you do that, I will go check out some of these authors!