About the "McOndo" (1996) short-story anthology, University of the Andes Prof. Ignacio Valente, said that the thematic substance of the Fuguet–Gómez compilation was neither expression nor commentary about contemporary Latin American life, but an imitation of American pop culture literature. Politically, the "McOndo" book-introduction has been identified as a "political" manifesto, the fascist and neo-liberal gripes of a (Latin) American-rich-boy implying that Latin American poverty and poor people had disappeared. The Bolivian critic Centa Reck, faults the McOndo narrative style for replacing the Macondo jungle flora, fauna, and rural landscape, with the McOndo urban "wild jungle of cell phones, McDonald’s, shopping malls, drugs, and an unintelligible slang." Nevertheless, despite the global literary aspiration, the McOndos narratively incorporate the slang and jargon and argot of their subjects, the local colour of the metropolis with which the reader can identify.