Sometimes I forget that my sexual kinks are being served here, despite being sort of niche, and I am grateful. I just wish it was a bit more... fetishy, rather than the hotness being overshadowed by some Keyser Soze (Keyser Sissy?) plot twistiness.
That's kind of the contradiction when it comes to being critical about the story, right? On the one hand, erotica can be a bit more loose with it's rules. It follows a "rule of sexy", and there's a bit of a larger than life aspect where part of the premise is that people are more impulsive, the sex is more wild, and people make dumber choices.
But the flip side is that a mystery story invites the reader to speculate. The fun of it should be looking for the details and figuring it out. The "Ah-Ha" moment is part of the reward.
Overall, I think I agree with you. I do wish it was more "larger than life". I wish the feminization felt more like it mattered. Like, on the one hand I'm thrilled Joel's being feminized so that we can have more feminization in our feminization story. But I also realized the other day, if he wakes up and is just already an attractive woman and we don't get to experience the steps of him coming to terms with his feminization, then it's also kinda superficial.
Maybe if Andrew was a more compelling character. I find it hard to enjoy his feminization. Usually stories I'm either fantasizing about inflicting that transformation on someone, or fantasizing about having that done to me. Or both at the same time. But with this one, Elena is so passive (and not in a sexy way) that the feminization elements really aren't really registering as feminization to me. This recent part is a great example. There are stories where the protagonist has gone through so much brainwashing and they're struggling with the question of what part of them has been changed because THEY want to or is it just the conditioning? And that scene can be really hot and sexy. But here... Maybe because of how unclear the method acting works, Andrew's inner thoughts on whether or not he really wants the transformation have come off as more... repetitive?
I think for me, the high point was when Elena first woke up after the memory loss. That was when the feminization was still being explored, it felt related to the plot, and the gaslighting by everyone added both to the mystery and to the feminization. It reminded me of one of the things I like in body swap/identity theft stories. But over time, the mystery isn't really about the feminization anymore. It's not a mystery of "how is the feminization being done?", or "who is going to be feminized next?"
Instead, we're mostly at a point where the prevailing question is "Is anyone actually leading this conspiracy or are we really supposed to believe this has been a string of coincidences?"