Where It All Goes Down
Lost Cove, California
Welcome to the Twilight Zone: a little (fictional) town called Lost Cove that's on the coast of California, "not even two hours away" from Stanford University. (6.37) There's some pretty obvious symbolism going on in the name of this made-believe place.
For one thing, most of the characters—including all of the Sweetwines, Oscar, and Guillermo—are spiritually lost. Noah and Jude in particular have lost touch not just with each other, but also with their own identities. Their journey in the book is to find themselves, which in turn helps them find each other.
We know what you're thinking, and the answer is no, no one moves to Found Cove at the end.
One funny detail about Lost Cove is that it's frequently so foggy that parents lead their mini-mes around on those little child leashes. The fog, too, adds to that sense of fumbling blindness the characters feel, emotionally speaking. It's a nice mystical touch in a novel that celebrates the supernatural.
Timewise, the setting feels contemporary, though there are no clear signs of exactly what year it is. The story covers events in Noah and Jude's lives from ages 13 to 16, but not in chronological order. The chapters alternate between the present day and stuff that happened two or three years ago.