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.