10 Questions To Help You Explore Our September Monthly Read, Bad Habit by Alana S Portero

Welcome to 10 Questions, where the Service95 Book Club provides you with everything you need to start your own discussion about Dua’s Monthly Read. Whether you read alone, with a book club or a group of friends, these questions will help you peel back the layers of Bad Habit by Alana S Portero, Dua’s Monthly Read for September.

1. “I saw a whole generation of boys fall like irredeemable angels... The first time I fell in love it was with one of those angels. He came flying from the window of his parent’s apartment, a hypodermic needle planted in his foot.” So begins Bad Habit. How do these opening lines set the scene for the rest of the novel?

2. Bad Habit is full of pain and danger, but also beauty. How does it feel to read distressing things through a beautiful lens?

3. “You discover that you’ll end up becoming a woman from the examples that surround you.” What does the narrator learn from the matriarchs of Bad Habit? From her own mother, to ‘The Wig’, to ‘Lady Godiva’, to ‘Pebble Face’ Margarita?

4. What does the word ‘family’ mean in the context of this story?

5. Bad Habit is a story of rebels and misfits. Which were your favourites? 

6. “My body was changing and starting to really repulse me.” How did you feel reading about the narrator’s physical distress?

7. What’s the significance of the book’s title, Bad Habit?

8. Portero says the city of Madrid is like a drag queen. What does she mean by this?

9. From Boy George to David Bowie to Madonna, Bad Habit is crammed full of music icons who are going through their own metamorphosis. What role do they play in the novel?

10. Bad Habit is a celebration of self-discovery. What are your hopes for the narrator?