In 1997 Ángeles Mastretta was awarded the Premio Rómulo Gallegos for Mal de amores (1996), the contribution of this text to Hispanic letters paralleling that of Arráncame la vida (1985). Mal de amores is perhaps one of Mastretta’s most accomplished pieces of writing in terms of thematic treatment and stylistic technique. In contrast with the limited first person perspective of Arráncame la vida, the third person narrative of Mal de amores offers the reader a broader perspective and facilitates greater authorial manipulation of the plot. Catalina’s vulgar language and abrasive tone is replaced by a more measured and less insistent style. According to Trinidad Barrera, Mal de amores reproduces two literary genres:

In Mal de amores, the writer takes her reader through the most horrific and fascinating period of twentieth-century Mexican history, from the last years of Porfirio Díaz’s presidency and the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911 to post-revolutionary Mexican society, ending in 1965. Like Nellie Campobello, Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos and Elena Poniatowska, whose works were considered earlier, Mastretta chooses the Revolutionary period as a means of rewriting history from a feminist perspective. In this way, both Mal de amores and Arráncame la vida conform broadly to the parameters of the New Historical Novel as defined by Seymour Menton, both being set in a period previous to the author’s.

In many ways Mal de amores is more optimistic than Arráncame la vida since much of the novel deals with the hopes for change that the Revolution will bring. Though not uncritical of the revolutionary tradition, it is reminiscent of Mariano Azuela’s revolutionary fervour and partial optimism in Los de abajo (1915). In Mal de amores, the protagonist’s identification with the underdog reminds us of those narratives of the Mexican Revolution where the collective voice plays a particularly important role as in Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho (1931).