Bad Habits

I have received this review copy for free. My opinions are my own.

I was quite excited to read this book: It’s a feminist YA book about a rebellious girl, being completely different than everyone at her Catholic boarding school. If you think about a potty-mouthed, sex posive girl with big boots and a purple faux-hawk inside in a place full with nuns and priests, you get the overall vibe of the book.

Alexandra Heck is the protagonist of this book and having a confident girl like her lead a story like this just fits amazingly. Alex is outgoing and says what she thinks and she is just so unapologeticcally herself. She really fits in the story this book is trying to tell and I feel like teens that are going to read this book will find that confidence rubbing off themselves. My only complaint with the writing and storytelling is that it felt like the author was trying a little to hard to sound trendy and like teenagers today, making it feel a bit forced times.

I like Alex as a character. She is flawed and sometimes a bit rude and ungrateful, but flaws make us human and books are already saturated with seemingly perfect characters, making Alex quite welcome. And she is complimented by a whole cast of different types of characters, of which the main one is Mary Kate. She is Alex’ roommate and though she learns a lot from Alex on the front of self-empowerment, Alex learns a lot from her too. Mary Kate’s character is the perfect counterbalance to Alexandra, making sure that the book doesn’t get overwhelming with all the swear words and radical ideas.

I really liked the idea of a feminist YA novel. Even in 2021 there is still a male-bias in books and media just like in real life, so to have a book completely about teens being against the patriarchy. Bad Habits is basically a full on rebellion against things like not being able to openly talk about things like periods, or vaginas, or whatever falls in that same category, as one of many things. And being set in a religious setting, a lot of these issues are only magnified even more, because of beliefs. Teens nowadays need to know that you shouldn’t feel limited by societies standards and it’s normal to talk about bodies and bodily functions, like periods or sex. And though this feminism is carried out by a relatively privileged white girl on a boarding school, the message is still important.

Despite the fact the feminism in this book does address a lot of good points, I did dislike the fact that the feminism in this book was super binary-focused. It felt like a whole women vs men game; men have the power and dominate women, with nothing beside or beyond that. It wasn’t until the last twenty pages something was said about the gender binary and what is beyond it, and it was just briefly and not too relevant aswell.
It’s 2021. Besides the fact that feminism isn’t just about (cis)women, just the fact there was so much talk about gender and gender inequality, and none of it, aside from two brief mentions, was about anything other than (cis) men and (cis) women didn’t sit right with me. Even binary trans people didn’t really seem to fit in the narrative, or atleast there was nothing that led me to believe that.

Bad Habits wasn’t a book where it ”just wasn’t mentioned”, which happens sometimes, as the language used in the book often referred to female as being the ”other gender” compared to male. And then there are the Harry Potter references, which are uncomfortable for their own reasons, but especially in this context. I have listed the specific chapters in the content warnings below. My point is that I am not trying to write this book off as bad, but I wanted to direct some attention to this as not everyone might initially think about it this way.

To make a long story short, Bad Habits is a YA contemporary which was a lot of fun to read and touches on important subjects. But it also has to be seen through a critic eye as there are some issues with the way the feminism was portrayed.

Content warnings: Alcohol use, drug use, sexual harassment (mentioned), sexual references/innuendos, unprotected sex (mentioned). Short Harry Potter references in chapter 13, 17 and 23 (chapter numbers taken from the e-ARC).