The Around the World in YA Book Tag was originally created by Becca @ Becca and Books. I was tagged by Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse. The rules are simple: List a country, and then show which favourite book of yours is set in that country. You can use the countries I have used, add your own, or use completely different ones!
AUSTRALIA
Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo is an Australian YA novel that I recently read and loved.
It’s an absolutely wonderful novel about growing up, transitions, self-discovery and first love. This book is set in Sydney, where I live, and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to read about places that I recognise and have been to. I also really related to the two main characters and the situations they were going through.
CHINA
I couldn’t think of a YA novel that I’ve read that’s set in China. So I went with Cinder by Marissa Meyer.
Cinder is set in New Beijing, which is a futuristic China or Asia. It seems to be a combination of all the Asian countries… The Lunar Chronicles is my favourite series of all time, and I loved that the first book, Cinder, features some Asian characters and Asian culture. The other books in the series takes us to France, Africa, and the moon!
FRANCE
Is this even a surprise to anyone?
My favourite book set in France has to be All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. There’s no competition. I know it’s not YA, but I couldn’t give up the opportunity to talk about this book! I guess if I had to choose a YA novel, I’d go with Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins. This one is set mostly in Paris, but the characters travel to Barcelona and New York City as well.
GERMANY
I could have also put All the Light We Cannot see for this one, but I’m getting really predictable these days.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is my favourite YA novel set in Germany. I read this when I was in school and I loved the setting of it so much! WWII Germany is one of my favourite settings to read about, along with pretty much anything else that’s set during WWII, in case you couldn’t tell from my love of All the Light We Cannot See.
INDIA
Just One Year by Gayle Forman is set partly in India. You probably all know how much I love Just One Day by Gayle Forman. Just One Year is a companion that follows Willem’s adventures as he tries to reunite with Allyson.
He travels all over the world, from the Netherlands to Mexico, to India… and other places. At one point, he visits his mother in India and ends up being cast in a Bollywood movie.
nETHERLANDS
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is set partially in Amsterdam. I could have gone with Just One Year by Gayle Forman again, or even Just One Day, but I’m sure you’ve had enough of me raving about that duology.
In TFIOS, we follow a girl called Hazel Grace, who’s obsessed with a book written by an author who lives in Amsterdam. The book doesn’t have an ending (I think. I can’t remember!) so she travels to his home in Amsterdam to ask him about what happens next.
THE UNITED KINGDOM
My favourite YA novel set in the UK right now is Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. It’s inspired by Harry Potter, so it’s set in the Watford School for Magicks in the UK.
I love everything about it, including the world, magic system and the characters. OMG the characters. I love Simon and Baz so much. SnowBaz definitely wins my OTP of the year award! They are adorable individually and together ❤ ❤ ❤
USA
Since most books I read are set in the US, I had to just choose my favourite YA novel of all time, I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.
This book is set in California and follows a set of twins, Jude and Noah, who are both hiding secrets. They used to be really close but something has torn them apart, and now they barely speak. What they don’t know is that if they came together and shared their secrets, they could figure out the truth and repair their relationship.
I TAG:
Once again, I’m tagging some of my newest followers:
- Alahna @ The Charmed Reader
- Daniela @ Daniela’s Bookshelf
- Iseechelly
- Jaymee @ Bookciology
- Olivia @ Heir of Glitter
I like your choices 🙂 I only had TFIOS for Netherlands as well, other than that you have completely different books. This tag is so cool and it makes you realise how many countries you’ve traveled to via book – at least it does that for me.
Also, now I feel like I should really, really read All the Light We Cannot See. The cover has always intrigued me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve never really thought about book settings until this tag and it was surprisingly hard! I mean, you think about them once in a while when tags have a question that ask you to choose a book set in a different country… but there hasn’t been a tag that’s gotten me to think about more than one country. All the Light We Cannot See is absolute perfection! It’s so incredibly well-researched and you really get a good sense of the WWII historical French and German settings. Oh gosh, you’re probably drawing in all my recommendations XD
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am weirdly aware whenever books aren’t taking place in North America. Also, I was frantically looking for something taking place in my home country that could be classified as YA and I found absolutely nothing among my books. ;/
LikeLike
I am weirdly aware whenever books aren’t taking place in North America. Also, I was frantically looking for something taking place in my home country that could be classified as YA and I found absolutely nothing among my books.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ugh that’s the worst! I’m starting to read more YA that’s set in Australia and it’s been really nice to be able to recognise the places that are mentioned.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love it when that happens. Whenever some place is mentioned that I know, I mostly like the book better simply for that. When I read Did I Mention I Love You?, it mentioned the place where I spent my exchange semester at and I freaked with happiness! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I recently read cinder and loved it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m so glad! I absolutely love that series and I can’t wait for you to read the rest. Winter is so epic!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m reading Scarlett right now. I just love captain thorne!
LikeLiked by 1 person
OMG Captain Thorne is amazing!! It’s so hard not to love him. But I think I can say the same about the other characters too. Can’t wait for you to meet Cress!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m about to start Cinder! 😀 Great minds think alike because I also posted my Around the World tag today before seeing that you had as well!! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh yay! I’ll have to check it out later (omg I’m so behind on blog commenting because I’ve been marathoning Chaos Walking!) and see what your choices were. I had a hard time coming up with some of my answers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I stared at my screen for a while and then pulled up my goodreads page bc my memory is awful. It was only after seeing the covers that I was like, oh, yeah that totally didn’t take place in the US.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had to pull up my Goodreads too! But didn’t really end up using it much because everything I saw was set in the US!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t seen this tag before but it looks awesome 🙂 I really need to read Carry On! ASAP!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I LOVE Carry On so much! It definitely gives you lots and lots of feels! I was raving about it to everybody I talked to for at least 2 weeks straight.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great answers! Thanks for the tag! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love your choices! 🙂 I really need to read I’ll Give You the Sun, I need more time to read ALL the boooks, ahah 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, don’t we all? You should definitely give I’ll Give You the Sun a go! It has so much in it: family, romance, self-discovery, LGBTQ+. It’s just amazing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re so mad. LOLOLOLOL.
LikeLike
I’m not even that mad, actually. I’ve gotten better at these things with practice 😛
LikeLike
OOH! I loved the Lunar Chronicles!! I’m reading Winter right now, and I just surpassed the part where Cinder gives a speech to the people of RM-9 after the video has played out. I am SO SO SO anxious–I don’t want the book to end! The series was so amazing.
And I’ve heard really great things about Carry On, and when I read Fangirl, it just sounded sort of like a comedic parody of Harry Potter but my friends tell me it’s nothing like that, so it is on my TBR.
Oh, and I’m tagging myself for this Jenna 😀 if you don’t mind~I really like the tag and I want to do it!!
Love and books,
Veda
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sure. Go ahead and do it! It’s a lot of fun.
I personally didn’t like the Simon Snow fanfic in Fangirl because I was so invested in Cath and Levi’s story. But Carry On is definitely a wonderful book! It’s probably in my top 10 for this year. It’s still reminiscent of Harry Potter but I think I connected to it because of that. And I know exactly what you mean about Winter! I sped through the book in a day and I was so sad when it was over. I don’t want to leave my babies!!! T_T
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ooh, this tag looks soo great – only problem is that I don’t think I could find a book to quite so many countries. I’m such an ENORMOUS FAN of TLC!! I could never have enough of these characters, and I’m so sad their journey ended in Winter. 😦 Anyways, it was a spectacular book, so that’s compensates the end of the series.
I can’t wait to read All the Light We Cannot See, so I’m super-glad to see that you loved it so much!
Amazing post! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, I wanted to do a couple more countries but I couldn’t think of anymore!!! I really wanted to do one for Canada but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book set in Canada…
I’m so super sad that Winter and The Lunar Chronicles is over!!! I could read another 10 books about this world and these characters. MY BABIES ❤ 😥 It was an epic ending though that made me really satisfied but I NEED MORE!!! And yes, yes, yes! Please read All the Light We Cannot See!! I love it so much.
LikeLike
I love your choices! I totally forgot The Fault in Ours Stars has a trip to the Netherlands in it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I almost did too! I read it such a long time ago that the setting didn’t come to mind immediately.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice post! And thank you for tagging me! **
LikeLiked by 1 person
No problem! Enjoy!
LikeLike
Yessss your China and UK picks are perfect 😀 Every time I see the Book Thief I just feel so sad! And gosh this is the 4th time I’ve seen you talk about All the Light book, I see what you’re doing there because I want to read it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Read All the Light, Jeann. Read it! 😉 And you know I had to mention Carry On and TLC! So much love for those books ❤
LikeLike
Well since I haven’t read any of these other than Cinder I didn’t realize they were set where they were. Especially The Fault in Our Stars and Just One Year. And you did a good job with this challenge, Jenna! This is definitely going to be one of the more difficult tags. If I run out of creativity I’ll just use the Students Across the Seven Series series, lol. XD
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had to pull up my Goodreads for this tag HAHA. And there was lots of digging into my brain to find the settings. You should read Just One Day and Just One Year! It’s one of my favourite contemporary duologies!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we briefly talked about this before… but I wasn’t a huge Gayle Forman fan with If I Stay. But okay! If the books ever go on sale, I’ll give them a try!
LikeLiked by 1 person