"[Bad Habit] shows us that a 'trans novel' can actually be anything it wants to be." –New York Times
"A novel that could very well serve as a surrogate mother for future children who grow up lonely and trans." –Washington Post
"I urge you, read Alana S. Portero's Bad Habit to fully grasp the degree of adversity, pain, and danger endured by those growing up trans." –Pedro Almodóvar
Combining the raw realism and vulnerability of Shuggie Bain and Detransition, Baby with the poignant sensibility of Pedro Almodóvar, a staggering coming-of-age novel deeply rooted in the struggles of a trans woman growing up in Madrid.
Anchored by the voice of its sweet and defiant narrator, Bad Habit casts a trans woman’s trying youth as a heartfelt odyssey. Raised in an animated yet impoverished blue-collar neighborhood, Alana S. Portero’s protagonist struggles to find her place. As the city around her changes–the heroin epidemic that ravages Madrid through the '80s and '90s, rallying calls of worker solidarity and the pulsing beat of the city's night scene– she becomes increasingly detached from the world and, most crucially, herself.
Yet through her eyes, the streets and people of Madrid are illuminated by a poetry absent from everyday life. And by this guiding light she begins to plot her own course, from Margarita, the local trans woman whose unspoken kinship both captivates and frightens her, to Jay, her first love and source of an inevitable heartbreak, to the irrepressible diva Caramel. As she forges ahead, she sets her compass to a personal north star: endeavoring to find herself. But with each step forward, she is confronted by a violence she doesn’t yet know how to counter; in this exciting, often terrifying, world each choice is truly a matter of life and death.
With her first novel, Alana S. Portero strikingly underscores the ties between gender and class, the search for identity, and the power of sisterhood and community. Gentle but blistering, Bad Habit is a mesmerizing story of self-realization that speaks to the outsider in all of us.
Translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem
Author Info
Alana S. Portero is a medieval historian, writer, playwright, LGBTQIA+ activist, and cofounder of the theatre company STRIGA. Her writings on feminism and LGBTQIA+ activism from the perspective of a trans woman have been featured in a number of international publications, including Agente provocador, elDiario.es, El Salto Diario, S Moda, and Vogue. She lives in Madrid.
Mara Faye Lethem is a writer, researcher, and award-winning translator of contemporary Catalan and Spanish prose. She has translated Patricio Pron, Javier Calvo, and Irene Solà and won the inaugural 2022 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award for her translation of Max Besora’s The Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí, Conquistador and Founder of New Catalonia.
Reviews
[Written] with such a fine sensitivity to the balance of politics and poetry, community and childhood ... [Bad Habit is] an exemplary and fresh example of the trans bildungsroman ... a novel that could very well serve as a surrogate mother for future children who grow up lonely and trans. — Washington Post
“This is an important book, one that reminds us of the often painful and treacherous reality of growing up Trans. At times the story screams an almost unbearable loneliness. But it also soars with the euphoria that comes with finding your true self. You’ll delight in the fiendishly wicked sisterhood of the city’s street queens, outcasts and misfits while singing your heart out to the sounds that spill out of the clubs and into the plazas. This is a book to savour. Enjoy every word” — Dua Lipa
"I urge you, read Alana S. Portero's Bad Habit to fully grasp the degree of adversity, pain, and danger endured by those growing-up trans." — Pedro Almodóvar, Two-time Academy Award–Winning Filmmaker
"Just as Baldwin’s writing is weighty with the pulpit rhetoric he first engaged as a young Pentecostal minister, so Portero’s style is inextinguishably Catholic... Bad Habit, a work of deep humility, spilling over with prose rich as double cream, will function much the same, as a lodestar for readers, staggering bruised towards their own personhood.” — The Guardian
"Alana S. Portero's Bad Habit is a tender, evocative coming of age story about learning to live authentically. Full of loving affection and quiet betrayals, this novel captures the challenges inherent to finding autonomy and queer community. Bad Habit is a powerful book about growing up trans." — Isle McElroy, author of People Collide
“At once brutal, tender, and vulnerable, Bad Habit is told in gorgeous, poignant vignettes that paint a portrait of a trans girl's coming of age in working-class Madrid. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Let's be real—I would follow Portero's charming and resilient narrator anywhere. There is violence, yes, but there is also beauty, warmth, and care. Full of unforgettable characters, mothers, and connections, Portero has written a masterpiece, an ode, a life-giving story of trans affirmation. This book is everything and more.” — Marisa Crane, author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
"Raw, unapologetic, and ingenious in its expressions of pain, Bad Habit bravely bares the scars of being queer in an unaccepting society while illuminating unexpected pockets of hope and tenderness. . . . Hidden within this heartrending story is the healing power of caregiving within women’s circles, offering novel ways to consider feminine alliances, just as the narrator reclaims her identity as 'every woman.'" — Booklist
"Affecting and evocative... [Bad Habit] sets out in clear, emotive language the everyday struggles – external but also internal – faced by trans people" — The Observer
"Bad Habit is queer fiction at its painful, honest, celebratory best, rejoicing in the beauty of trans lives while simultaneously acknowledging the violence that the world too often thrusts upon them." — BookPage (starred review)
"I felt Bad Habit in the throat like a faraway song I caught myself humming. Portero’s elegant storytelling catches a celestial light, illuminating the body in ways beyond language." — Eloghosa Osunde, author of Vagabonds!
"A novel that intertwines LGTBIQ+ activism with humour, beauty with pain, the dissociation of the interior with exterior world. . . . The most talked-about debut of the year." — Time Out Spain
"Such a beautiful novel, also cruel and full of redemption, about the journey we take to become who we truly are, and about the people that come with us to fill in the blanks." — Elena Medel, Author of The Wonders
