As I may have mentioned once or twice or a hundred times (particularly if you follow me on Twitter), I recently made a big move to Austin, Texas for a new job. It’s an exciting place. We have people like Sandra Bullock! Matthew McConaughey! Lance Armstrong! Frodo! Richard Linklater! Sadly, we no longer have Leslie, but we do still have other natural wonders like Barton Springs Pool, Hippie Hollow and Mount Bonnell.

With Kidlitcon (in Austin this year!) fast approaching, Austin books and Austin authors have been on my mind. I always get a kick out of reading a novel and being able to recognize particular landmarks that may only be known to locals. (My previous town makes a brief cameo in The Passage, but the geography of restaurants and such is all wrong.)

Below is a short reading list of YA books set in Austin – some written by Austin authors, but not all. Descriptions are from Worldcat. Am I missing any? I’ll give honorable mentions to books set in any Austin suburb.

Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences by Brian Yansky: When a race of aliens quickly takes over the earth, leaving most people
dead, high-schooler Jesse finds himself a slave to an inept alien
leader–a situation that brightens as Jesse develops telepathic powers
and attracts the attention of two beautiful girls. Kimberly’s review

Derby Girl by Shauna Cross: When sixteen-year-old rebel Bliss Cavendar, who is miserable living in a
small Texas town with her beauty pageant-obsessed mother, secretly
joins a roller derby team under the name “Babe Ruthless,” her life gets
better, although infinitely more confusing.

How Not to Be Popular by Jennifer Ziegler: Seventeen-year-old Sugar Magnolia Dempsey is tired of leaving friends
behind every time her hippie parents decide to move, but her plan to be
unpopular at her new Austin, Texas, school backfires when other students
join her on the path to “supreme dorkdom.”

Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker: Quinn plans to enjoy her summer in Austin, Texas, working for a record
company, even though she has to live with her cousin Penny. Kelly’s review

Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham: Alice, Summer, and Tiernan were best friends who broke up at the same
time as their favorite band, but four years later, just before they are
preparing to go off to college, the girls reluctantly come back
together, each with her own motives, for a road trip from Massachusetts
to Austin, Texas, for the band’s one-time-only reunion concert. Kelly’s brief review

Solstice by P. J. Hoover: Eighteen-year-old Piper lives with her controlling mother amid a Global
Heating Crisis, but when she gets her first taste of freedom she
discovers a universe of gods and monsters where her true identity, kept
secret from her birth, could make all the difference in the world.

 
Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith: When multiple murders in Austin, Texas, threaten the grand re-opening of
her family’s vampire-themed restaurant, seventeen-year-old, orphaned
Quincie worries that her best friend-turned-love interest, Keiren, a
werewolf-in-training, may be the prime suspect.

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore: Seventeen-year-old Amy Goodnight has long been the one who makes her
family of witches seem somewhat normal to others, but while spending a
summer with her sister caring for their aunt’s farm, Amy becomes the
center of weirdness when she becomes tied to a powerful ghost. Kimberly’s review