[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
"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
