La mala costumbre

Narrated in a unique and heartbreaking first-person voice, *La mala costumbre* (The Bad Habit) traces the adolescence of a girl trapped in a body she doesn't know how to inhabit, trying to understand herself and the world she lives in, from her childhood in a working-class family in the San Blas neighborhood, ravaged by heroin in the 1980s, to the clandestine nights in downtown Madrid in the 1990s. Like a bastardized version of the hero's journey, junkies, pop divas, and fallen angels accompany her on a life-changing journey in which, ultimately, it will be other women who help her overcome the violence she encounters at every turn. *La mala costumbre* is a raw and ferocious novel, but also poetic and moving, in which extremes meet to show us why resentment and rage against the system are perfectly valid for surviving in a society that doesn't accept those who are different.