La Mala Costumbre - Alana S. Portero.epub -
La mala costumbre (Bad Habit) by Alana S. Portero is a critically acclaimed, autobiographical-infused novel exploring trans identity, social class, and chosen family in 1980s and 90s working-class Madrid. Selected for Dua Lipa's Service95 Book Club, the debut is praised for its lyrical prose and raw portrayal of a character finding their path amid a restrictive society. Read a review from The Guardian.
La mala costumbre, de Alana S. Portero Narrada desde ... - VK
La mala costumbre (Bad Habit) by Alana S. Portero is a critically acclaimed coming-of-age novel depicting a trans woman's journey through 1980s and 90s working-class Madrid. The narrative highlights themes of identity, trans sisterhood, and the search for acceptance, often utilizing raw realism mixed with mythical imagery. Read a full review at The Guardian
La mala costumbre (translated as Bad Habit) by Alana S. Portero is a critically acclaimed coming-of-age novel that explores the intersections of trans identity, social class, and the landscape of post-Franco Spain. Core Narrative & Setting
The Protagonist: The story follows an unnamed narrator (referred to as Álex in some contexts) growing up as a trans girl trapped in a boy’s body.
Setting: Set in the 1980s and 90s, primarily in San Blas, a working-class neighborhood of Madrid ravaged by the heroin epidemic.
The Struggle: The narrator navigates a "double life," hiding her true self to avoid violence and social ostracization while observing the world of women—including her mother and neighbors—with a mix of idealization and fear. Major Themes
Bad Habit by Alana S Portero review – in search of acceptance
La mala costumbre (English title: Bad Habit) is the 2023 debut novel by Spanish playwright and poet Alana S. Portero. A visceral and lyrical coming-of-age story, the book has become an international literary phenomenon, translated into over 17 languages. It explores the intersections of gender, class, and identity in post-Franco Spain. Plot Overview La mala costumbre - Alana S. Portero.epub
The novel follows an unnamed narrator, a young trans girl born into a boy’s body, as she navigates the working-class neighborhood of San Blas in Madrid during the 1980s and '90s.
Childhood in San Blas: Growing up in a suburb ravaged by the heroin epidemic, the protagonist feels isolated and "trapped in a body she does not know how to inhabit".
Double Life: As a teenager, she begins to explore Madrid’s clandestine nightlife and the gay neighborhood of Chueca, living as a woman by night while maintaining a male persona by day.
Search for Community: Through encounters with "fallen angels"—junkies, pop divas, and world-weary trans sex workers—she eventually finds the "chosen family" and sisterhood necessary to survive a society that denies her existence. Key Themes
Bad Habit by Alana S Portero review – in search of acceptance
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- A detailed summary (chapter-by-chapter or full-book)
- A thematic analysis (themes, motifs, style, tone)
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Title: La mala costumbre by Alana S. Portero: The Sacred Wound of Growing Up Trans in a Hostile World La mala costumbre (Bad Habit) by Alana S
There are books that inform you, and then there are books that inhabit you. Alana S. Portero’s debut novel, La mala costumbre (Bad Habit), falls squarely into the second category. Published originally in Spanish and now gaining international acclaim (with a keen eye on the upcoming English translation), this is not a tidy, trauma-porn memoir dressed as fiction. It is a raw, poetic, and unflinching x-ray of a specific kind of pain: growing up poor, working-class, and trans in the San Blas neighborhood of 1980s and 90s Madrid.
If you are looking for a story about overcoming adversity with a neat bow on top, look elsewhere. Portero is interested in something more complicated—the habit of self-destruction, the beauty found in the margins, and the radical act of surviving when the world wants you to disappear.
3. Key Themes
- Trans Femininity and Childhood: The novel provides a rare and intimate look at the specific experience of a trans girl growing up. It challenges the common narrative that trans women only realize their identity later in life, asserting instead that the identity exists from childhood but is suppressed.
- The Performance of Gender: The title La mala costumbre is an ironic commentary on how society forces trans individuals to "perform" the gender they were assigned at birth. The protagonist describes the exhaustion of pretending to be a boy as a "bad habit" she must break.
- Class and Geography: The setting of San Blas is crucial. Portero paints a vivid picture of the neighborhood—the asphalt, the heat, the blocks of flats. The story highlights how class struggles intersect with gender identity; the protagonist’s transition is not just about gender but about surviving in a working-class environment that offers little room for deviation.
- The Body: The book is known for its visceral, sometimes graphic, description of the body. It speaks openly about dysphoria, puberty, and sex work, refusing to sanitize the trans experience for a cisgender audience.
Final Verdict: Should You Download It?
Unquestionably yes.
La mala costumbre is not a beach read. It is a mirror held up to a Spain that many want to forget—the Spain of la heroína, of the polígono industrial, of the children who ran away from home because their parents could not understand them.
If you are looking for La mala costumbre - Alana S. Portero.epub, you are looking for more than a file. You are looking for a companion in darkness. You are looking for the confirmation that, even in the worst habits, there is a seed of survival.
Do not pirate it. Buy it. Borrow it. Read it. And then pass it on.
The Neighborhood as a Character
Before we even meet the protagonist’s interior world, Portero anchors us in the concrete and asphalt of San Blas. This is not the romanticized Madrid of Almudena Grandes or the chic boulevards of modern tourism. This is a post-industrial wasteland of brick housing projects, heroin (the caballo that claimed so many lives during the AIDS crisis), and a suffocating brand of machismo.
Portero’s prose is visceral. She describes the smoke from factory chimneys and the smell of poverty in the stairwells with a tenderness that only someone who has escaped—but never stopped loving—that world could muster. For the protagonist, the neighborhood is a double-edged sword: it is the place that forges her resilience, but also the cage that tries to beat the femininity out of her. Tell me which of the above you want
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Is there an audiobook version? A: Yes. The audiobook narrated by Alana S. Portero herself is available on Audible. Hearing the author pronounce the Madrid slang adds a profound layer of authenticity.
Q: Will the book be translated into English? A: As of 2025, rights have been acquired by HarperVia in the US. The English title is rumored to be The Bad Habit. However, reading the original Spanish EPUB is highly recommended for purists.
Q: The file I downloaded has weird characters. Why? A: That is a sign of a pirated copy. Official EPUBs from Seix Barral use correct UTF-8 encoding for Spanish accents (á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ). Pirated versions often scramble these.
Q: Is this a sequel to Las Malas? A: No, but both books belong to the emerging genre of "working-class transfeminist literature." Read them as companions.
Ready to read? Search for "La mala costumbre - Alana S. Portero.epub" exclusively on legal platforms like Google Play Books or eBiblio today. Your library—and your conscience—will thank you.
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Key Themes Analyzed
When you open your La mala costumbre - Alana S. Portero.epub, pay attention to these recurring motifs:
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report details the structural and content analysis of the digital publication file La mala costumbre by Alana S. Portero. The work is a highly acclaimed novel that blends historical narrative with autofiction and fantasy elements. The .epub format is the standard digital distribution format for the book. The analysis confirms the work is a significant piece of contemporary Spanish literature focusing on the trans experience in a hostile historical context.
1. The Gentrification of Pain
Portero fiercely criticizes the mainstream LGBTI movement for focusing on marriage equality and corporate flags while ignoring the trans women dying of AIDS, poverty, or violence on the outskirts of cities. The novel opposes the "respectable" gay man with economic resources and the trans woman del barrio.
2. BIBLIOMETRIC DATA
- Title: La mala costumbre
- Author: Alana S. Portero (Madrid, 1978)
- Publisher: Literatura Random House (Spain)
- Publication Year: 2023
- Format: EPUB (Electronic Publication)
- Language: Spanish (Castilian)
- ISBN: 978-84-397-4218-4 (Hardcover/Paperback reference); Digital ISBN varies by distribution platform.
