7 YA Books That Turn Real Cities and Countries Upside Down

Arizona/Sonora, Mexico
Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion and its sequel, The Lord of Opium, take place in the land of Opium, a new country formed out of parts of southern Arizona and northern Mexico. We can’t know for sure, it being made up and all, but it seems to encompass Tucson, Benson, and Nogales, among other towns and cities. In the sequel, Matt visits The Biosphere, which sounds like a made-up scientific advancement but is actually a real facility run by the University of Arizona, a research center that strives to re-create the earth’s seven ecosystems. This is a dystopian world in which Opium’s dangerous leader, El Patrón, has created clones of himself, one of which is Matt, the book’s teenaged hero, so that he always has organs ready for harvest and can live forever.

Berlin
Imagine the club and city setting of the musical Cabaret, the plot of the 1927 film Metropolis, and the twist of the season three opener of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and you have Dark Metropolis, by Jaclyn Dolamore. Thea’s mother is sick, and her good friend disappears, prompting her to investigate the seedy underbelly of her magical city. There, she discovers a criminal operation that turns people into zombielike slave workers. History buffs will recognize the late-1920s European nightclubs and wonder if what goes on beneath Thea’s city actually was happening in pre-Hitler Germany.

London
Remember how we learned in The True Meaning of Smekday that the reason Disney World is so clean is because there are two, and they flip over every night so that the other one can be cleaned? Imagine an upside down London, named UnLondon, that is twisty and…off. China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun takes its characters on an adventure that Alice would find quite familiar, and London denizens or visitors will identify reversed versions of the things they know. Want to stay in England a bit longer? V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic series jumps between a bunch of parallel Londons.

Scandinavia
The Kingdom of Little Wounds, by Susann Cokal, is not for anyone who faints at the sight of blood or a pimple popping, but it is a fascinating take on medieval politics and “medicine.” A king deteriorates, a maid misses her home in Africa, and a seamstress worries about her place in the social hierarchy after pricking the queen’s finger. You may not recognize the particular physical setting, but students of European history will find a lot to dig into with royal history and Scandinavian cultures.

Brooklyn
What is Brooklyn without bearded hipsters and brownstones? Magical, apparently. But don’t worry—the magical is still hip in Sarah Porter’s Vassa in the Night, capable of partying all night at cool warehouses. Make sure you read the folktale “Vasilissa the Beautiful” before you pick this one up so that you can appreciate the literary inspiration along with the metropolitan one. Think Perrault’s “Cinderella,” not anything based on our American idea of the tale, with a Russian twist.

Manhattan
New York is known for many things, including its architecture and dynastic American royalty. In The Shadow Cipher, first installment in her York series, Laura Ruby creates a new version of the Big Apple, one defined by the architecture, tech, and legacy of the groundbreaking Morningstarr Twins, and filled with the kind of robots and mechanical beings you’d expect to find in steampunk, even though it takes place in the present day. Three friends living in the same apartment band together to take down an evil real estate developer who threatens to tear down their home, one of the Morningstarr twins most famous creations.

Italy
If you’re fascinated by the de’ Medici family or time travel, Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganza series, taking place in a version of Renaissance Italy, is for you. Intrigue, destiny, nobility, and gondolas? Yes, please. And you have six books to read, each with a different main character who gets swept off to a city in this alt version of Italy.