I like sentimental stories not violent or abusive stories but I can see both liking this story and thinking it needed a bit more work. It did have holes as colleen expressed.

This is a good story, because Hans is a asshole and deserves a worst fate.
Good.

Reading Colleen's comments makes me want to be judgmental of her and you.

Colleen is obviously upset. She has that right as a reader. A writer creates an implied contract with the reader. If the reader will agree to suspend their disbelief, the writer will take them on a plausible adventure.

The James Bond movies are an example of such an adventure. The first several moments are rock'em sock'em hokum, designed to tell us that we are in a new a much different land. We are told to get ready to engage in pure fantasy. It's fun. We are very willing to stretch the boundaries of what we deem plausible.

I got into your story -- because I wanted to, not because you gave me that much help.

It would have been quite easy for you to add plausible explanations for holes in your stories. Instead you leave this up to the reader.

You seem to be determined to set some sort of quantity record for Storysite. You might want to try for more quality.

Do you work with an editor? You might try Geoff. You can contact him through the bulletin board.

Your premise always seems to be interesting. It is your mechanics that need help.

You need to work on characterization to make us interested in your protagonist. Why should I care about your hero?

There is more good to your writing than bad . . . which makes it very frustrating for me to read.

Jill

What a disappointment!

As I made my way through the story, I came across this quote:
"Astrid nodded weakly. This was getting worse and worse."

Reading that, I smiled weakly.  The story was getting worse and worse.  What a ridiculous premise!  At a simple level, what kind of country would have such stupid laws and customs?

At a more thorough level, the fact that Bill's parents did this to him made absolutely NO sense.

Then when "she" was back in America, why couldn't Astrid have found some way to run away or seek help.  Ooh, he took away her passport!  Like it would have been hard to find a way to hide from a foreigner in his country of origin.  He had not yet been chemically changed in anyway - how hard would it be to ditch the femme clothes, get some male clothes, and somehow make his way back to his original home?  It should be fairly easy to re-establish his identity, replacing any necessary papers like a driver's license and a birth certificate.  He's now an adult - his parents can't force him back to the other country.

I'm sorry.  There were so many things in this story that were just plain flawed.

Good story, nice twist.  This was just the type of ending I like, where the hero(ine) comes to love being a woman, a strong independant woman, and gets revenge on the ones who forced her and wanted to dominate her.  I would like to know what happens between Astrid and her parents.  Are her folks good guys or bad guys?