Bad habit

Winner of the Time Out Culture Award and considered by the newspaper El País one of the 10 best books in Spain in 2023, Mau Hábito became a global publishing phenomenon, combining Almodóvar's kitsch universe with a raw and poetic narrative.

Narrated from a singular first-person voice, Bad Habit chronicles the adolescence of a girl growing up in a body she doesn't know how to inhabit. We follow her quest to understand herself and the world she lives in, from her childhood in a working-class neighborhood ravaged by heroin in the 1980s to her clandestine nightlife in central Madrid in the 1990s.

In this wandering version of the hero's journey, addicts, pop divas, and fallen angels accompany the protagonist on a journey where other women help her overcome the violence she encounters at every turn. It's a borderline and magical story about what it's like to live between two worlds and become who we are.

Bad Habit is a raw and fierce novel, but also poetic and moving, in which extremes collide to show that resentment and anger against the system are justifiable when trying to survive in a society that rejects differences.

Owner of a unique creative universe, where theater, classical history, and activism coexist, Alana S. Portero debuts in fiction with this dazzling novel, which became an international publishing phenomenon even before its publication.

“I urge you to read Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero to fully understand the degree of adversity, pain, and danger faced by people growing up trans.” — Pedro Almodóvar

“Prose takes on the weight of poetry in Alana S. Portero's first novel, which narrates the learnings of a trans woman in 1980s Madrid.” — El País

“This delicate coming-of-age novel, born of the glitter and the asphalt, has multiple facets, illuminating and nuanced trans lives, [...] bringing them closer to the experience of everyone else.” — Vanity Fair España