Hello everybody!
My name is Kayley Hide and I am from Seattle, Washington,
which is in the upper northwest corner of the United States of America.
On my channel, I make videos about books and reading.
Today, I’m so excited to be guest vlogging for EF
to talk about my favorite books set in the state of California.
I lived in southern California for almost three years.
I’ve also traveled all over the state.
So, whenever I find a really good book that is set there, I feel like I’m back there again.
The six novels that I’m going to share in this video
are set in different cities all across the state
and really capture the essence of the area they’re set in.
I know a lot of you might be traveling to California in the near future,
so let’s get started talking about those books.
The first book I have to recommend to you today is The Girls by Emma Kline.
This is set in northern California, a little outside of the San Francisco area.
It’s set during the violent end of the 1960s. It’s split between two time periods:
partially in the 1960s and in modern day times as well.
It’s written from the perspective of a girl named Evie.
Evie sees this group of girls and she’s so caught up in their aura of freedom and carelessness.
She immediately wants to become a part of that.
She gets drawn into this kind of cult scene, hidden away in the hills on this sprawling ranch
where she is desperate to find acceptance.
It’s a really dark book that gets quite violent,
but it does this amazing job of setting the scene of the 1960s
in northern California on a sprawling ranch and hot summer days.
As soon as I picked up this book,
I felt like I was there on a hot northern California summer’s day.
It’s a really powerful and incredible novel.
The next book I want to talk about is Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
It’s set in this really cute, small, quaint, bookstore in San Francisco.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a story about data, computers, coding,
and the future of books.
There’s a bit of a love story but, ultimately,
I feel like it’s a love story about books themselves,
and what’s going to happen to the book industry in the future.
It’s a great book for booklovers.
It’s set in a futuristic San Francisco that’s quite similar to how it is now,
but with small differences that make it really interesting.
It’s really about the divide between
people who love physical copies of books with pages that they can smell,
versus people who think that the printed book is dead.
It’s whimsical, smart and contemporary and a great mix of futuristic and fairy-tale.
The next book is a young adult novel, and it is
Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins.
Lola and the Boy Next Door is another book set in San Francisco.
What makes this one really different is that it’s about a younger girl who really wants
to become a costume designer and is involved in the quirky areas of the city.
It’s a really cute, contemporary story about a girl who thinks she has her life together.
She knows what she wants to do with her life. She has a boyfriend who she really loves.
Then, these two people she knew when she was younger move back into the house next door to her.
The book is a lot about her finding herself, as well as which boy she’s going to end up with.
Is it the boy next door or her rocker boyfriend?
All while being set in the cool, eclectic neighborhoods of San Francisco.
It’s quite different from the other books I’ve mentioned.
It’s a really cute book. It’s really fun and
I think it does a really good job of getting you invested in the city in a different way.
I swear, this is my last book set in San Francisco.
This is You Know me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour.
This is the story of a few different kids who go to high school together
and really come together during Gay Pride Week in San Francisco, which is huge in San Francisco.
It’s one of their biggest week-long events.
It’s really fun. It really captures that spirit of San Francisco.
I think it’s a great, quick read if you’re looking for something based in that city.
The next book I have is one of my favorite books of 2017 so far.
It’s The Mothers by Brit Bennett.
The Mothers is set in a contemporary black community/neighborhood
in southern California, right around San Diego, I believe.
It’s a story of community, ambition and love, and how all those things come together.
It kind of begins with a secret and how a secret in a small community feeds and grows,
and eventually comes out and everyone knows what’s going on.
The writing is beautiful. It really captures the community aspect of the book.
You really get that southern California feeling to it.
It’s just beautiful. It has beautiful writing. I love that book.
The final book I have for you today is Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour.
I’m actually reading this book right now for the first time
and I already have to recommend it to people because it’s so great.
Everything Leads to You is set in Hollywood and follows a teenaged set designer
as she tries to make her way in the Hollywood movie scene.
Already, a few chapters in, the spirit and feeling of Hollywood is so present in this book.
It feels very Los Angeles, very L.A. It has a great romance between two girls.
It tells a great story of ambition and following your dreams, of love, acceptance, family ….
It’s got it all. I’m only a little bit of the way in, but I already know it’s a great book for those of you
looking for a book about California and especially Hollywood.
Whether you’re planning a trip to California or just want to read a book to escape there,
these books will do a great job of representing the diversity of the state and its people.
I hope you love these books as much as I do.
Thank you again for welcoming me to the EF YouTube channel and Happy Reading! Bye!