Bad Habit by Alana S Portero

I'm not sure how someone can write a book that is both sensitive and brutal at the same time, but somehow Alana S. Portero has managed it. It's a debut novel so she has dived in at the deep end by telling the story of a young boy convinced that he is really a girl.

The book has been translated from Spanish and has become an international best seller since its first publication in 2023. I said it was both sensitive and brutal and that is because the young person is dealt with gently, but the family home is in a run down area of Madrid in the 1980s and some people in the neighbourhood are cruel and judgemental. The apartment blocks are filled with people from all walks of life, and violence within families is commonplace, so no-one particularly takes any notice of cries in the night - unless the crying turns to screaming. It is mind boggling to imagine how much pain and suffering some people have to endure before anyone does anything to help them.

The singer Dua Lipa chose the book to be part of her Service 95 book club, so that introduced the book to many readers who may not otherwise have found it. I confess that I only picked it up because it had an eye-catching cover and it was one of the new recommended picks for the new year in the library. However, I'm glad I read it because it does go some way to explain how trans people think about their identity, and in a world where many people are still intolerant of any kind of sexual diversity, it does tell the story from the perspective of someone who has lived the life.

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