Books set where you live

I see myself as having two home cities: London, where I'll be moving to next year if I get AAB in my A Levels, and Oxford, where I currently go to school and have lived near for 13 years.

I read The Bone Season in June and I absolutely adored it and one of the reasons I fell absolutely in love with it is because it's set in Oxford. It has a map in the front showing all of the colleges that are important in the book and all the main roads in central Oxford. It got me thinking about how some books are a really personal experience and connecting to a book is heavily linked with that.

So when I hear about Americans reading The Bone Season I become very protective over it. In my head, though irrational, it belongs to me and my city.

I had never quite connected with a book on this level before: the sharing of a place that is so fundamental to both of your identities. I have had a very strong relationship with Oxford which has been primarily built over the last year and two months. The Bone Season somehow captures my relationship with Oxford. I am constantly in awe of Oxford in the way it is grand and magical and makes me feel very safe, especially in the old parts.

I'm getting nostalgic, please do stop me. I just know in six months I will go through my school leavers ceremony and in eight months I will never return to Oxford as a student who studies there. Oxford has become a city where I found out who I am and where I have been happiest, with the exception of Walt Disney World. Losing it feels just so premature.

I know next year when I'll be living in London *touches all the wood* I'll need my disposable camera prints and my Oxford Sketchbook I got for my birthday and The Bone Season.