Setting plays a unique role in The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, for the city of Los Angeles, becomes a character in its own right and contextualizes many of Nina’s experiences. In many novels, setting powerfully influences the characters’ actions and provides implicit metaphors, and Waxman employs these aspects of setting as well. For example, when the narrator discusses the jacarandas in bloom and compares them to a larger transformation of the city, this detail foreshadows the transformation that Nina herself will undergo.

Similarly, Waxman often pauses to insert discussions about the city itself, and some descriptive passages offer up a blend of affection and humor. For example, Waxman describes the valley as an “unnatural oasis” (95) and sums up the evolution of the movie business as going from “jerky ants in old footage” (95) to eventually embrace the tumultuous conventions of reality TV. Some descriptions continue this blend of homage and humor, such as the description of the “joie de vivre all Angelenos have” (235) and the assertion that “Los Angeles runs on youthful optimism, endorphins, and Capital Letters” (235). Later, at the Larchmont street festival, the narrator makes light fun of Los Angeles’s “signature perfume: sunscreen and money” (253).