I love a novel that has one main, central setting that almost "becomes home"; where you can imagine life going on there after you've put the book down.
Like many a 90s child I grew up reading Harry Potter as they came out, and have never found anything in literature that's come close. Maybe, again when I was a kid there was the "Vampire Mountain" in Darren Shan's novels… but I'm a 28 year old adult now and it cannot be that the best examples of this come only from two kids books I read years ago.
In terms of TV I'd say Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls and The Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation fit the bill, but surely theres some novels that have done this that I've just never discovered. Im sadly not an avid reader any more, but there are so many of them out there after all.
So, which main settings became a home to you?
EDIT: to clarify, I have no issue with adults reading "kids books" – although I've come to dislike JKR as a person I still read / listen to those books routinely.
by woolensun
14 Comments
Ann Aguirre’s Fix It Witches series is set in Saint Clair, Michigan and it definitely gives Stars Hallow but if it were in the Midwest vibes. I absolutely loved those books, the small town vibe and quirky characters were perfect.
Clive Barker’s Abarat
Living like Morwen, a witch in the Enchanted Forest, with an amazing garden and a tidy cabin. Enchanted Forest chronicles, Patricia c wrede. One of my faves, definitely a series to read, over and over, when you need some comfort.
The shire is my fictional home
Hobbiton.
The H.M.S. Surprise.
My fictional home would be Prince Edward Island in L.M. Montgomery’s books (and Muskoka, Ontario in “The Blue Castle”). It reminds me a lot of the little town on the coast of Maine I grew up in, which has since unfortunately fallen victim to overdevelopment (it’s so ugly now, I never go back). But reading the Anne or Emily or Story Girl books immediately takes me home again, with the country lanes and birch groves and sunsets over the harbor.
The Shire is the home to many a heart.
Middle earth
Outside of Hogwarts for me it is Stoneybrook. I was (still am) a huge Babysitters Club fan growing up and a small New England town seemed like peak life to me 😂
I had to think about it much as I might have once said the USS Enterprise, I’ve since spent way too much time on Babylon 5 or Ceres Station from the Expanse.
Gormenghast castle.
Best fictional setting—the lands above the far away tree
I always loved Maggie Stiefvater’s fictional town of Henrietta, VA in The Raven Cycle. That includes a mysterious forest called Cabeswater that appears upon a ley line in town.