RaveThe Cleveland Review of BooksThrough the alchemy of translation, Sophie Hughes has reinterpreted the local slang of Melchor’s Mexican Spanish. The result is a linguistic marvel: a hybrid English that jumps between British and American dialects; a bastard tongue situated somewhere between LA pulp and something out of James Kelman. It’s a risky choice with an immense payoff ... isn’t a novel about the effects of gender violence; it’s a novel about the people who enact it ... ends on a despairing note, with Polo’s circumstances unchanged, his hopes unveiled as shams. It’s a fitting end to an unsparing work.
