It can be a lot of fun to read about about places you’ve been or lived. At the same time, if it’s a city or neighborhood I know well, and especially if it’s somewhere special to me, the author had best have done his research. In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series (beginning with The Lightning Thief), the heroes spend time in San Francisco, my current home, and Bar Harbor, Maine, not far from my previous residence, makes a cameo appearance, as well.
Growing up in Maine, we of course had Stephen King‘s horror novels and short stories coming to life around us, and back on the west coast, Armistad Maupin‘s Tales of the City and subsequent novels are all about life in San Francisco. What novels have you read with familiar settings? Did the author do the place justice, or were there moments of, “What?! That’s not right at all!”
Oddly enough, though I’ve lived a fair share of places, I rarely come across a book set somewhere that I’ve lived. (This could also be because I read a lot of fantasy. . . .) I did a stint in Atlanta, and so occasionally I run across books set there, but I really hated the time I spent in Atlanta (yes, I will hold an entire metropolis responsible for my miserable middle school years) so I don’t have a good sense of it as a place. Other places I’ve lived have been mostly small towns of little historical significance, and I can’t think of any books set in any of them.
It’s funny; I just looked at the “places” common knowledge zeitgeist on LT yesterday and my most frequent locations are London, Valdemar, NYC, Boston, and SF. I’ve lived in the last two, but none of the first three (airfare to Valdemar is wicked these days!). ;)