My Rating 3.5 stars

Bad Habits by Flynn Meaney


I was definitely drawn to the book after seeing the front cover. Honestly I didn’t know what to expect before I started it but, it definitely turned out to be a fun and entertaining read.

Bad Habits follows the main protagonist Alex who has been sent to a Catholic boarding school after the divorce of her parents. She’s constantly breaking the rules but the head of the school refuses to expel her, so she decides she’s going to make it her mission to get herself thrown out.

The writing was very simple and easy to follow which made it a nice quick read for me. I really liked the premises of this book and how although funny and light still covered some important topics, especially those topics that are still taboo’s even now.

Now, although I found that most of this book moved pretty fast there were a couple of slow sections, where I struggled with a my interest wavered a bit but t honestly I think that may just have been down to preference of what was happening rather than to do with the actual story.

There was a nice mix of characters. You have the protagonist Alex who isn’t particularly likeable at the start as she comes across as quite self-centred and irritating. But as you follow her and through the book you really get to know her character more and you see there is so much more to her character and you really do start to see the true her. Then you have the side characters, who I found quite intriguing and entertaining, and thought they were also well created and developed. However, one thing that I did notice was the lack of diverse characters, there are a couple but was surprised that there weren't more.

Even with some of the issues I found in the book, I really did enjoy this one. It made a nice change to my usual reads. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for a quick yet light and funny read. A quick heads up, there is quite a lot of explicit language throughout the book, which didn’t personally bother me but, if you’re sensitive to it then you may want to go into with caution.

This is a short, contemporary YA read with an interesting premise. I liked that it was a 'smaller' story when so much of YA seems to have to be hugely ambitious in scope and setting. However, I never found this narrative hugely compelling, partly I think because Alex isn't particularly likeable to start with and is trying so hard to be 100% rebel all of the time (I got irritated by the repetition of 'motorcycle' boots). Some of lines landed really well and made me smile or laugh, and some were less successful. I do think I would have enjoyed this as a teenager though and been attracted to the blurb. Mary-Kate also strikes a lovely balance alongside Alex.

This book really warms up as it unfolds though and Alex's journey as a character is really nicely done.

A genuinely funny, feminist story that made me laugh out loud but also stop and think.

Full review to come on my blog.

Foremost, I must say, I had high expectations from this book thanks to the blurb.

Once I started reading the book, there were so many times I said to myself that that is not how a feminist must tackle issues and that that is not how a feminist must do but so went the main character botching everything up. She had an idea in her mind and she was not ready to accept anything else. When I say anything else, I mean that she was not willing to accept other people's right to their own choices. This made me mad because in a way it propagates the idea that people do not know what is right or best for them. That people cannot think and decide for themselves.

Having stated that, I must also add that the book  talked about many issues that need to brought out in open and the taboo sticker needs to be removed from them to encourage discussions and solutions for many a problems out there that people face. I say people because that is what feminism is about. It talks of inclusivity and equality for everyone.

There were many times when I wanted to smack the main character on the head (I am not a violent person and I do not condone violence and you to treat this sentence in its metaphorical sense) for the way she dealt with situations as there were other ways that could have provided better results.

The best part, however, was that Alex's learning curve was shown highlighting the fact that whoever you may be, whatever your ideals and beliefs, there is always room to learn and that how every person you meet teaches you something or the other. I likes that the story showed that our experiences change us. The changes may be subtle, but they are always there.

Lastly, the book is very light-hearted and brings you many laughs.

So I'm usually down for anything feminist and / or mocking the Catholic church. But 'Bad habits' didn't do it for me.

Dare I hope that the first issue I want to raise will have been fixed in the finished book (my copy was an e-ARC)? Maybe but I'm guessing not. Anyway. This amount of Harry Potter references in a book touting itself as feminist is unacceptable to me. JKR is a TERF. I don't think TERFs are feminists. So I had a problem right from the start.

Also, I just didn't like Alex, the narrator. I get that she was meant to be a pain in the arse, but for me she wasn't the loveable kind. I just couldn't get behind her. I didn't find her funny even though she was trying really hard. Too hard.

Her roommate Mary Kate was my favourite character. Her heart was in the right place and she had her own mind and principles. She was too good for Alex.

The ending was decent and finally showcased some of the diversity that was cruelly missing from most of the book. Unfortunately for me it was too little too late.

Alex, our resident punk radical feminist, purple fauxhawk, and biker boots extravaganza, is stuck in her catholic school. No matter how many curfews she breaks or boys' bedrooms she’s caught escaping, St Mary’s keeps giving her unwanted second chances. So Alex, in the tradition of fighting the man, Alex decides to do the absolute worst - she will stage the first-ever St. Mary’s production of a play that became the holy grail of feminist everywhere - THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.

So when I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was “10 Things I Hate About You”. I adored Kat, for all her stereotypical feminist snark, and to this day I can probably recite every single line in this cinematic masterpiece.
Alex, the main character of Bad Habits, is a modern, slightly less prudish (I hate this word, I’m deliberately using it) version of Kat. She’s sarcastic, crude, spitting-my-beer-funny, and as ferocious when it comes to fighting her sexist, patriarchal school as she’s oblivious to her spoiled rich white girl problems and privileges.
This book was such a fun read, but it also didn’t shy from criticism. It talked about gender equality and at the same time, threw miles of shade on how sometimes, fighting for a cause can make you blind to your own prejudices on everything isn’t instantly part of your cause.

What bothered me about this book was how white it is. I don’t presume to know much about Catholic schools in America, but I doubt this huge-ass school doesn’t have POC in it. I expected more from a book about equality and fighting corrupted systems 🤷🏾‍♀️

I was really drawn by the description of this book and it didn't dissapoint me. A young feminist fighting to perform "The Vagina Monologues" in her catholic school and at the same time trying to help improve sex education at the school.

It was an amazing premise and I believe the author did a great job, especially with the setting of the book and providing us context about the school and what was going on with the protagonist's life. For me it was a super fun and quick read.

I was drawn in by the premise of Bad Habits, a young Feminist fighting to stage the Vagina Monologues at her Catholic boarding school. Parts of this held up and parts didn’t.

I enjoyed the strong sense of place throughout the book, the school felt fleshed out and almost like another character in the book. The plot, however, meandered and focused little on the actual play and more on the protagonist, who didn’t read like a teenager to me, more like an amalgam of buzzwords. I also felt that the writing in general laid on a ‘fellow kids’ veneer too thickly, which affected my enjoyment of the book.

I wanted to like the book and root for its protagonist - I’m a Feminist who believes that good quality sex education is vital! Unfortunately I couldn’t get to that bond through the layers of awkward attempts to be relatable.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm always here for the intersection of YA and religion. Add in a heaping dose of feminism and a main character whose first language is sarcasm and I was laughing out loud within about three pages. Seriously. This book is hilarious! (If you’re sensitive to language, Bad Habits has quite a colorful vocabulary! But to be fair, I heard worse in the passing periods of my public high school hallway, and I learned to swear like a sailor while in Catholic grade school, so this was a bit like reliving my childhood.)

Alex doesn’t exactly fit in at St. Mary’s Catholic Boarding School, where she was sent after her parents divorced. She’s not exactly the prim and proper, plaid-wearing Catholic girl of their dreams; her purple faux-hawk, motorcycle boots, clove cigarettes, and ability to pick out even the slightest whiff of misogyny anywhere she goes (and it’s woven in deeply at St. Mary’s) have her constantly warming seats in the office, and this time, she’s close to the end. Deciding to finish things off once and for all, Alex decides to pull something St. Mary’s won’t be able to forgive her for: staging a school production of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play, The Vagina Monologues.

Easier said than done. The school isn’t exactly bending over backwards to help her make this happen. Her roommate, buttoned-to-the-neck-yet-boy-obsessed Mary Kate, is mortified to even whisper the word ‘vagina.’ Her fellow students’ more conservative manners don’t make them terribly receptive to Alex’s headstrong messages. But Alex has a lot to learn beyond how to make a proper scene…

I spent SO much of this book laughing. Alex is a LOT- she’s brash, crass, irritable, stubborn, and incredibly forward. She’s no-holds-barred, which frequently gets her in trouble- not that that worries her. But beyond being foul-mouthed and ill-tempered (quite often with good reason!), Alex is smart and quick on her feet. She’s the sharp, quick-witted YA character we all wished we could be, with cultural and literary references at the ready for every retort. I’m going to age myself here, but she would have fit in well on Dawson’s Creek. While at times she was a bit much, overall, I enjoyed her edge and her ability to eventually take a hard look at herself and grow where she needed to.

Her roommate Mary Kate is fun- boy-crazy in a sweet way, but there’s more than meets the eye there, as there is to every other character, something that Alex struggles to see in her dismissive efforts to caricaturize her classmates and school staff. Major props to Alex's goody-goody classmate for making a killer Biblical argument at the end. Seriously, watch for this, it's brilliant. The messages here- look deeper, understand where other people are coming from, notice what you have in common before you notice what divides you- aren’t heavy-handed, but woven into the narrative in a way that makes this book full of life lessons just a fun, funny, entertaining read. I laughed out loud so frequently while reading this that my husband was wondering what on earth I was doing upstairs.

A fun read that asks readers to look a little deeper at the people in their lives.

Bad Habits follows Alex as she tries to put on a production of The Vagina Monologues in an attempt to finally get kicked out of her Catholic boarding school.

The book is a short and fast paced read, the plot revolves around Alex as she tries to get kicked out of her school, a place where she does not fit in and in order to that she decides to put on a school production with limited success – I really liked the setting of the book. The plot for the first half of the book was kind of messy – it went nowhere and did not focus on the school production as much as I thought it would, in general the book focuses little on the actual production which was kind of disappointing, but I did like the second half of the book a lot more. The second half is more fun and focuses on the side characters more which is probably why I preferred it, although Alex is an interesting narrator and I liked what she was saying and what she stood for – I also found her really annoying and rude and I hated how she put other people down constantly. She does get called out for some of her behaviour towards the end but because everything happens quickly in the book, you do not get to see her change after she gets called out.

There were some funny parts to the book, and I get what the author was trying to do but I did think the book just tried too hard in general especially with Alex’s character which is probably why I did not like her as much as I thought I would. Also, the plot was really cliché and some parts of the book just ended up being really cringy especially towards the end.

2/5

I requested a copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

Alex Heck is a rule-breaking badass student in St Mary’s whose goal is to get expelled in order to go back to California. When her latest mishap failed, she decided to put on a St. Mary’s rendition of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ and see how events go from there.

I like the tone of this book. It’s sex positive, and the characters have their distinct personalities. However, I think that Alex falls into a badass protagonist trope. Readers are meant to root for her character, but she ends up being portrayed as selfish and self-centered, even if the book points out the ways she assists St Mary students in an unconventional manner. These events though are mostly done through telling, rather than showing her character’s innate goodness, or that her character cares about other people. Instead she becomes rather obsessed with her only mission, which is to make a daring show. The writing was engaging, although plot points seem to go by very quickly.

While I did like the storyline of the novel, it’s all rather very informational. We only know things about the characters because they tell us. Still, this reads really quickly, and has other factors that I like from it: aside from the tone and characters, I also particularly liked the atmosphere it radiated, and that it didn’t sound preachy even if it’s set in a Catholic environment. This was a fun read, and other readers might give this a try if they are fans of Derry Girls (which is a fantastic show).

Bad Habits is a contemporary YA novel about a Minnesota Catholic boarding school where one student tries to shake up the status quo. Alex stands out at her school with her purple fauxhawk and tendency to get into trouble, but this is on purpose, as she wants to be expelled and have to move back to California. When her latest exploits don't get her out of St Mary's Catholic School, she thinks up a new plan: to put on a production of The Vagina Monologues. But what starts as a way of getting into trouble turns into something larger, a way to try and tackle sexist norms and help out her fellow students (even if her best friend Mary Kate isn't so sure).

I was interested in Bad Habits thanks to the cover and the fact it was compared to Derry Girls, but didn't really know what to expect. What it turned out to be is a fun story of trying to make a boarding school a little more progressive, with a protagonist who needs to judge people a little less and an unlikely friendship at its heart. It isn't a book with a huge amount of plot, but rather has a simple narrative as Alex tries to put on her production and also grows as a person, realising people can be feminist in different ways and that people might surprise her. Taking a rebellious character and showing they really do like the place is a bit clichéd, but it is meant to be a fairly heartwarming and funny book that looks at the lighter side of fighting for equality in somewhere steeped in old traditions. Alex's roommate and unlikely best friend Mary Kate is a great supporting character, whose desire to fall in love doesn't stop her developing herself as a person, though some of the other background characters blurred a bit for me.

You could see this being turned into a TV series (and indeed the ending feels a bit like it could set up a second book), maybe on the lighter end of the scale but still tackling real issues. Having never been to a Catholic school or boarding school, it's hard to know how realistic or not it is, but the messages about not only feminism, but accepting others' choices as part of feminism, are important, even when centred around such a privileged world. Bad Habits is a fun YA book good for teenagers who want contemporary light reads that don't always have romance as the main focus.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The premise is fun and easy t0 follow with a simple style and engaging characters, making for a quick and fast paced read.

The protagonist, Alex, comes across as self centred and egotistical at times, a 'pick-me' type girl who puts down others for how they interpret feminism yet she is written in a compelling way which allows the reader an enjoyable experience as we follow her journey to produce The vagina Monologues in a Catholic boarding school. The result is comical at times while emotional at others and provides a moving tale of friendship and feminism.

One critique is that some of the behaviours and language used does not appear entirely authentic and can either come across as too adult or simply out of touch. Nevertheless Bad habits is a fun easy read which provides examples of multi-faceted feminism.