On the day I film a video saying I'm in a slump I read this entire collection in two short sharp sittings. What started off as a titilating tale or two, that I thought were just going for a sexy shock and might get tired, I found a moving and varied collection of quirky queer tales that look at all walks of LGBTQ life in South America. I loved it. Funny, haunting, sexy and spell binding. I would like more from this author. Much more.

I am so confused.
One story, everything's fun and gay, the next is a satiric take on homophobia.
I picked it up because I'm trying to learn a little about Puerto Rico, but I ended up kinda amused and unsure if I'm wiser for reading this.
Libro cruel.

Me he devorado estos cuentos a bocados. ¡Tanto así que casi lo terminé en un día! No pude soltarlo, a pesar de lo crudo y grotesco de algunas historias. Fue sorprendente para mí el que, a pesar de tener exposiciones tan crudas y fuertes, los cuentos nunca caen en tragedia. Es interesante, porque al nunca exponerse como tal da a entender que estos eventos violentos son algo común en la vida del hombre homosexual en Puerto Rico. Creo que sobre todo, darme cuenta de eso fue lo más que dolió, lo más que sentí.

El libro no fue PARA NADA lo que yo esperaba, pero fue así en la mejor manera posible.

"I sat on the balcony to laugh at myself and Carlos and all of us gays, eternal denizens of Santurce, who have polished the sidewalks like crabs back and forth and sideways looking for machos, watching out for machos, or simply drunk out of our minds, out late, arm in arm, laughing jubilantly at the cars passing, shouting at us: fags! And us, raising our arms up high like beauty queens, shouting back at them: cocksuckers! And off we go to oblivion, holding hands, swishing all along Ponce de León."

Dreamlike and illuminating. Each story lingers after reading. Each story can be straight to the point but with a hint of hope. This is a book to reread.

read for class, and I cannot wait until we have the chance to discuss it

It's an extremely short collection with extremely short stories and flashy narration, but without any reason to really invest in these fleeting stories.

This collection of brief, humorous stories centers on the queer community of Puerto Rico with a style that is fast and colloquial, switching between understatement and satirical melodrama. Negrón has a knack for voice that even an English translation from Levine (which seems extremely faithful to the original, based on my earlier reading of “El elegido”) does nothing to tamper. These dialogue stories in particular deserve to be read aloud. Where Negrón sometimes falters is when he aims for dead seriousness or when he uses the third person perspective; “The Garden,” the collection’s most sentimental and earnest story, and “Mundo Cruel,” the title story, failed to land for me, as the former seems somewhat scatterbrained and the latter lays on the satire far too thick. Otherwise, Negrón leans into his strengths and delivers a collection of punchy, tongue-in-cheek, and quietly insightful stories, where queer politics, sheer lust, and the constant specter of “el macho” take center stage.