Sometimes the setting of a book can be a character in and of itself. Sure, every story has to take place somewhere, but in the books I’m talking about, the plot literally could not take place anywhere else. The story, the characters, the vibes, and the theme are so closely linked to the location in which the drama unfolds there is no way to separate them. Here’s a list of some of my favorite examples. If you’re looking to beef up your own integration of setting, or simply to fully immerse yourself in a time and place, these are a great place to start. I might even suggest taking your book on a tour of the sites. It’s really fun if you can!
Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon is a YA romance that perfectly encapsulates the bittersweet moment of graduating high school. While new journeys are exciting, they still mean saying goodbye to a place and community where one has lived for a formative piece of their life. Nothing will ever be the same. Which is why this book is a love story not only between high school rivals Rowan and Neil, it is also a love song to their home of Seattle Washington.
Rowan and Neil are competing in an epic scavenger hunt across the city, and after another classmate makes antisemitic comments about them, they agree to put aside their differences for the weekend to team up for the win. Rowan learns to look at Neil in a new light and the reader gets a tour de force through the city. if you’ve been to Seattle, you’ll happily recognize lots of tourist traps like the gum wall and rainbow sidewalks. If you haven’t, Today, Tonight, Tomorrow will give you a fine list of potential places to visit if you ever get the chance.
Another book that uses a city wide scavenger hunt as a plot device is A.J. Sass’s Ellen Outside the Lines. Ellen is a neurodivergent middle schooler on a trip with her Spanish class to Barcelona. On the way, she meets a new nonbinary classmate, triggering some mild panic as Ellen figures out how to handle a whole new set of pronouns and learns some new things about herself and her family. As Ellen is forced to navigate an unfamiliar city she realizes new truths about things she thought were familiar – her best friend, her own pronouns and sexuality, and even her fathers religious observance. Change can be hard, but sometimes it’s what is needed to return home a fuller, more complete person.
Nobody knows that better than the protagonist of Marisa Kanter’s Finally Fitz. On a trip to New York City for a summer internship in fashion, Instagram influencer and high school student Fitz finds her life turned upside down when her girlfriend dumps her. Fitz reconnects with an old friend, promptly starts fake dating him to make her ex-girlfriend jealous, and they run all over the city rescuing plants. From the Brooklyn Flea to Washington Square park and every sweaty subway stop in between, Finally Fitz gives us a realistic picture of what it is like to see manhattan through the eyes of a young person struggling to find their way, deal with emerging mental health issues, and sort through the messiness of new love.
Fleeing NY is on the mind of one Shani Levine, main character of Jake Maia Arlow’s YA romance How To Excavate a Heart. She’s coming off a break up that is much more than it seems (please read the trigger warnings) and some time in D.C. as part of an internship at the Smithsonian seems like the best way to get past it. Too bad she runs into a very cute romantic prospect, May, on her way into town. And by runs into, I mean literally, with a Subaru. Woops.
Shani and May tackle some pretty deep issues while gallivanting through the city, including coming out to their parents, the aforementioned prior break up, and May’s parents divorce. Still, there is a very cute dog and a whole lot of national landmarks to help the reader along. (Plus a surprising amount of fun information about fossil fish). I had a great time visiting the National portrait gallery and seeing some of the exhibits mentioned in the book during crucial moments.
Museums aside, the book that I took on a full city tour was Aden Polydoros’s YA dark fantasy romance The City Beautiful. No, I am not rich enough to randomly fly books around the country. This blog in fact makes negative monies, since I have to pay for the hosting. But I just so happen to be in Chicago for work and I couldn’t help but take The City Beautiful with. It’s a lush historical fantasy about a young man named Alter who is possessed by the Dybbuk of his murdered roommate during the Chicago World’s Fair. Alter must team up with his former flame – pickpocket and overall dapper criminal, Frankie – to solve the murder or risk being consumed by the dybbuk.
Obviously the landmarks Alter and Frankie see have mostly not survived to the present day, but Chicago has a lot of historical and architectural tours and I most definitely enjoyed the way they provided context to the story. Alter and Frankie’s journey is so tied to the time and place – large immigrant community in a big city just waiting to take advantage – and the World’s Fair provides the perfect veneer of genteel respectability to a city that survives on exploitative labor, so it seemed right to show them what became of their city.
The Ghosts of Rose Hill by R.M. R0mero also features a city of the past, but in this case it is a past that is intruding on the present. Violin player Ilana Lopez is sent by her parents to spend the summer with her Aunt in Prague when they become concerned that she is neglecting academic work for her art. What nobody counted on was that behind her Aunt’s cottage is a small Jewish cemetery that Ilana takes it upon herself to restore. While there she meets the ghost of a Jewish teen boy and discovers that he is in fact not dead, but rather stuck in between, as a man with no shadow feeds off his soul and that of several other Jewish children. To set him free, Ilana must risk herself and choose between saving the children and the depth that the man with no shadow gives to her music. The choice to tell this bittersweet love story in verse adds a poignancy that grabs straight for the heart, but also perfectly evokes the vibes of a city built on years of struggle and discrimination, especially for its Jews.
A hop skip and a jump away on the map is Budapest, setting of Katherine Locke’s brilliant YA historical fantasy This Rebel Heart. Set during the doomed Hungarian revolution of 1956, the book shows what it means to love a place so much, despite it failing you personally so hard, that you choose to stay and fight for its soul even knowing that you will lose. It is not a spoiler alert to say the revolution is not a success. Aside from this being a known historical fact, one of the books main characters is the angel of death who is there for reasons. Yet somehow Locke manages not only to push and pull the reader into hoping against hope that somehow history will rewrite itself in these pages, they also manage to have us fall in love with this place. Budapest’s people have betrayed Csila and her family and all their Jews, yet it’s river has saved her many times. We know it would be the smart thing to leave, but we cannot bring ourselves to wish her to go. We stand with her and bear witness to the fight.
Travel is expensive, no doubt about it, but these books will take you there and back for the price of a library card. They show you what it is to love a place even as you leave it, how to let a place change you on a brief visit, and what it means to fight for justice in the streets you call home. Setting is so much more than a backdrop. In the hands of these talented authors, it is the star of the book itself.
Find The Books Mentioned In This Post:
Ellen Outside the Lines: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
Finally Fitz: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
How to Excavate a Heart: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
The City Beautiful: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon| BookishlyJewish review
The Ghosts of Rose Hill: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
This Rebel Heart: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
Today, Tonight, Tomorrow: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review