I very much enjoyed the narration and the different voices used, except for the pronunciation of Gila monster, which unfortunately was a very common word in the story. Is pronouncing the 'G' in the US style considered a valid alternate pronunciation?
I kind of came up with the opposite reaction to Maxilu, which is that rather than the story being smushed in (which I also can see), it was that the metaphor / comparison was too obvious. It was too obvious even before the explicit references to the PoV character and her daughter being lesbian. Maybe the idea was that she finally realized the parallel between the anti-cactus/lizard ideology and the anti-woman/woman ideology, but I didn't find the story naturally taking me along that journey. It was more "nope, nope, nope, nope, OH!" .. Granted, that is one mode of realization that happens in life, but as a story ....