Tuesday Ten: Books Set Outside of the USA

This week's theme from The Broke and Bookish is "Ten Books With X Setting," and I'm choosing to showcase ten awesome books set outside of the United States. In cases where the books were originally published in another country (hello, Austrailia, land of incredible writers!), I tried to include the foreign title and cover.

1. What Alice Forgot

Liane Moriarty

This Aussie-published novel about a woman who gets a bump on the head and forgets the last decade of her life isn't setting-heavy, but it is set in Australia and it is absolutely wonderful. It's amazing. One of those rare books that I stayed up all night long reading. (Honestly I think I finally forced myself to go to sleep around four in the morning, then woke up at 7-ish and finished the book.)

2. Jellicoe Road (On The Jellicoe Road)

Melina Marchetta

Another Aussie book (you'll notice a definite trend in this post), Jellicoe Road was published originally as On the Jellicoe Road in Australia and unlike What Alice Forgot, the setting plays a huge role. It's another amazing, incredible, I-love-it-so-much book. There must be something in the water down under.

3. Tiger Lily

Jodi Lynn Anderson

Set in Neverland, Tiger Lily is a truly original, awesome take on the tale of Peter Pan. A love story, it tells us, but not like any you've heard. True, that. 

4. Love and Other Perishable Items (Good Oil)

Laura Buzo

Here's Australian book number three. The tagline on this Australian cover says, "A Novel of First Love and Second Thoughts," and that sums up Love and Other Perishable Items/Good Oil so well. The tale of a teenage girl who falls in love with her older coworker isn't nearly as tawdry as it sounds; instead it's well-written, angsty, and impossible. Though I had some conflicted feelings on this one (in spite of how amazing it is, it also has the one thing I really, really hate in YA novels), in the end I can't leave it off this list.

5. Mothership

Isla Neal & Martin Leicht

Set in space. Space! And, oh, it's everything you ever wanted a space-set YA novel to be.

6. Anna and the French Kiss

Stephanie Perkins

Sigh. Paris, Etienne, Anna. You knew this one was coming up, right? In related news: I need that paperback edition in my life.

7. serafina67 *urgently requires life* (Big Woo: My Not-so-secret Teenage Blog)

Susie Day

A UK-set book! Woo! This, my favorite YA novel of them all, is pure pure pure awesome and so wonderfully non-American. *huggles*

8. How I Live Now

Meg Rosoff

Okay so I think this is the original cover for the UK-set (yep, a second one!) How I Live Now. A weird, uneasy, hilarious novel.

9. Bloomability

Sharon Creech

Switzerland! Boarding school! If this list were ranked according to my love for these books, Bloomability would be way up near the top instead of down here at the bottom.

10. Code Name Verity

Elizabeth Wein

Various parts of Europe. Come on, we all love Code Name Verity.