Top Five Tuesday | Books set in the Netherlands!

T5T is a weekly meme hosted on BionicBookWorm so check out their blog. Today’s topic was a bit of a challenge, I have to admit, “Books set in your own country”. I live in the Netherlands and most books set in the Netherlands that I have read are not translated to English. But I have done my best, even thought I have tweaked the rules a little 😛 So let’s get into it!

1. Just One Year by Gayle Forman
   This is the sequel to Just One Day and I loved both books, and the second one (if I remember correctly) is partly set in Amsterdam! It’s been a while since I last read it so I’m not sure how big a part is set there but at least some of it 😛
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
   How could I not mention this one. Such an important part of it is set in Amsterdam. Honestly, I have only ever been to Amsterdam once, and I never saw the canals and such because we stayed in the city center with all the shops because we went to Waterstones, so it’s really odd to read about parts of my own country I have never actually been :’)
3. Midnight Blue by Simone van der Vlugt
   Simone van der Vlugt is my favorite Dutch author, and I absolutely adore her YA and adult historical fiction, but I’m sad to say that Midnight Blue (Nachtblauw in Dutch) just isn’t that great. It’s such a shame that THIS is one of the few books by her that have been translated into English, because she has historical novels that are much, much better. But it’s set in the Netherlands, during the 1600s and it is a cool portrait of Delft at that time.
4. The Evenings by Gerard Reve
   I had to read this one for school when I was a teenager and it made an impact on me, to say the least. I didn’t enjoy it, but it is very powerful. It’s about those long, boring and claustrophobic evenings after the war when there was nothing to do and nothing to live towards. It will have you screaming with frustration but that’s exactly what the book is about!
5. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
   Yes, I’m cheating with this one, because technically it’s not set in the Netherlands, but Ketterdam is for sure based on either Amsterdam or Rotterdam. There are Dutch words sprinkled throughout the book and in the beginning there are a bunch of Dutch names, which was really odd to read in an English book! Anyway, I loved the book, too, and you can read my review here.

 

Bonus:

I just realized the one I had on 4 first isn’t really set in the Netherlands, just by a Dutch author about a Dutch guy! So I put a different one in the list and that one here 🙂

Beyond Sleep by Willem Frederik Hermans
I read this book when I was in highschool for an assignment, and while I couldn’t appreciate it fully, it did make an impact on me. It’s about a young man who goes to Northern Norway (I still don’t really get where exactly) to look for meteors. But it’s about much more, it’s about his own inner turmoil as he has to deal with the bleak landscape. I’ve never read the translation, so I can’t comment on that, but there’s also a movie which is really well made, of the same title!

 

That’s it for this week ^^ hoped you enjoyed it.

 

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