oday, Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club reveals details about September’s Monthly Read: Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero. The Service95 Book Club will offer exclusive content from Dua and Alana throughout the month on service95.com and across socials.
“I got actual chills when I read the opening scenes of this book,” Dua shares. “Beginning with her fallen angels – the boys who become junkies on the streets of San Blas – Alana’s vivid portrait of a young Trans girl growing up in 1980s Madrid had me hooked from the very first page.”
Dua adds, “At its heart, Bad Habit is a beautiful story of someone coming to terms with who they are in an environment that doesn’t allow them to truly flourish. It’s about searching for – and finding in unexpected places – the people who help you grow. It’s a study on identity, love and acceptance, at a time of Spain’s own coming of age after decades of Franco’s dictatorship.”
“This is an important book, one that reminds us of the often painful and treacherous reality of growing up Trans. At times the story screams an almost unbearable loneliness. But it also soars with the euphoria that comes with finding your true self. You’ll delight in the fiendishly wicked sisterhood of the city’s street queens, outcasts and misfits while singing your heart out to the sounds that spill out of the clubs and into the plazas. This is a book to savour. Enjoy every word,” Dua ends.
In Dua’s interview with Alana, the two discuss why this book – a vivid portrait of a young Trans girl growing up in 1980s Madrid – is more than a Trans novel, as well as the importance of class when understanding gender issues, the importance of mentors, the manipulation of the far right on Trans issues, and why as a city, Madrid is the ultimate drag queen.
September’s context piece, written by Alana, centers around class, queerness, and the promise of La Movida in 1980s Spain, which she quips was “a decade of reality and desire.” As with other monthly reads, readers can dive into Alana’s recommended reading list and writing soundtrack from Bad Habit. Plus, this month’s content includes a video of Alana performing a reading of Bad Habit, and there are questions to challenge the reader to think about the book in a different way.
Dua’s Service95 Book Club is the latest offering from her Service95 platform, which consists of the At Your Service podcast and the flagship Service95 newsletter. Service95 has been praised by The Guardian as “some of the most thought-provoking short-form cultural writing you can find,” and the podcast has been lauded by The Sunday Times, Vogue and Vulture. In addition, Spotify named it one of the Best Podcasts of 2022, and praised Dua as “an incredibly thoughtful interviewer with a genuine interest in people, social movements, and the arts.”
You can follow Service95 on socials and YouTube to get the latest, and subscribe to the newsletter here to stay in the loop on upcoming monthly reads.
About Alana S. Portero
Alana S. Portero is a Medieval historian, writer, playwright, LGBT activist, and co-founder of the theatre company STRIGA. Her writings on feminism and LGTBQ activism from the perspective of a Trans woman have been featured in a number of international publications, including Agente Provocador, El Diario, El Salto Diario, SModa and Vogue. A sensation when it was published in Spain, her debut novel Bad Habit became a bestseller and has won many 2023 awards including the Vanity Affair Award for Best Novel and the Cálamo Literary Award for Best Book of the Year. Alana lives in Madrid.
About Dua Lipa
3x GRAMMY and 7x BRIT Award-winning global pop powerhouse Dua Lipa continues to be one of pop music’s leading forces with the release of her third album, Radical Optimism. Upon release, the album went straight to No. 1 in 11 countries, including the UK where it became the biggest album debut from a UK artist in 2024 and garnered the highest week one sales from a UK female artist since 2021. In the US, the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, marking Dua’s biggest sales week yet. The New York Times named it a Critic’s Pick and hailed it as “an album of nonstop ear candy,” along with Variety, who declared it “a joyous blast of pop savvy,” The New Yorker, who praised, “the instrumentation is a gleaming and impenetrable expanse, and the main attraction is Lipa,” and Vogue, who raved it is “a summery, self-assured slice of pop brilliance…[and] catchy as hell.”
Following its release in 2020, Dua’s certified platinum sophomore album Future Nostalgia became the longest running top 10 album by a female artist on the Billboard 200 in 2021. The GRAMMY Award-winning album spawned multiple worldwide hit singles, with “Levitating” earning certified diamond status and the title of Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song of 2021.
Dua has found superstar status on stage and off, thanks to her many passions outside of music. 2022 saw Dua launch Service95, a global style, culture and society editorial platform that now comprises a weekly newsletter, the Service95 book club and the Dua Lipa: At Your Service podcast, which has been lauded by The Sunday Timesand The Guardian, and was named one of the Best Podcasts of 2022 by Spotify. Having graced every major fashion magazine worldwide from Vogue and Elle to W and Dazed, Dua added “designer” to her resume in 2023 when she co-designed Versace’s “La Vacanza” collection alongside Donatella Versace herself, which Vogue deemed “the hottest collaboration of the summer.”
Dua’s eponymous 2017 debut album is certified platinum, spawned six platinum tracks, and made her the first female artist in BRIT Awards history to pick up five nominations in a single year. Dua has a total of 10 GRAMMY nominations, with three wins for Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist and Best Dance Recording. Additionally, she earned nominations at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards for her hit song “Dance The Night” from the box office sensation Barbie. Across platforms globally, she has amassed over 42 billion streams and holds the record for being the first female artist to have two albums with over 10 billion streams each on Spotify.