If there's any chance of actual critique (as opposed to simply relaying the humid bodyfeelings it so successfully creates), it's probably regarding the care allotted to each perspective. The first two chapters are the most layered pieces of characterisation (though, pleasingly, no more reliable or functional than the rest). You could make the case that there's alignment between that and the actual capacity for interiority of the characters, and as I'm saying that, I'm quite liking the sound of that reading, but then, no, it's not quite right, because the interrogation of Brando pushes back too far the other way. It all feels more like certain people, distinct from their plights, did not interest Melchor in the way others did, and she's just limping her way to her schematic structural concept in those cases. The anomaly for the remainder of the book is the aforementioned Brando chapter, both the obvious standout of the work and a cheap piece of exploitation, often both at once, neither really winning the battle. Quite the sense to have your mouth agape while your eyes are rolling, which is exactly what the book achieves as a whole, and, in a sense, exactly what it's going for. To live and grow now is to live in both intensely troubled and immensely stupid ways, with little hope for a break in the buzz to catch your breath and reassess. It's a communal portrait of people with no community, so desperate to find something to fill that void. Spoiler: they don't!