One of the great things about reading is that you can imagine places and people however you want.  I think this is why some people are disappointed by movie or T.V. adaptations of their favorite books.  No actor or movie studio can create a character or scene that matches the one in your mind perfectly.  But what if the setting of a book is a real place?

Lyra Belacqua lives at Jordan College in Oxford among the learned scholars but with very few playmates of her own. Luckily she has her demon, Pantalaimon, who accompanies her everywhere, changing shapes to resemble different animal. Lyra's uncle Asriel visits the college, and would have been poisoned is Lyra had not been spying on the professors in their private rooms.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Fourteen-year-old Junior is frustrated with his life on the Spokane Indian reservation.  He gets beat up all of the time because of a physical disability, his family’s crushing poverty means there is never any food in his stomach, and he’s afraid that he will end up in the same hopeless, alcoholic cycle as so many of his family members. 

 Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

When sixteen-year-old Paski Archuleta’s dad gets his big Hollywood break, he abruptly moves them both from sporty Taos, New Mexico to upper crust Southern California.  Paski misses her friends and almost immediately runs into the “haters,” the gorgeous, rich, and mean queens of the school.  They don’t like Paski because she is getting lots of attention from the hot guys of the school, particularly the most popular girl’s studly boyfriend.