In this comparative study, I examine how the rural Sweden is portrayed in two Young Adult novels – Det är någonting som drar i mig (Persson 2021) and De tar allt ifrån mig (Jones 2023) – and five song lyrics by the musician Hooja. By focusing on place and identity, with an ecocritical and intersectional approach, and with special focus on sustainability, I examine how power-related hierarchies relate to geographic position and thus to the relationship between the urban and the rural Sweden. By using the ecocritical terms of nature-culture, and the power categories of class and geographic position, I found that the two novels take a critical, but somewhat nuanced, approach to the rural, whilst the song lyrics portray the rural as unproblematic and romanticized. I also found that place and identity are closely connected in the examined texts, and that social class apects have a great impact on the place-based identity. In addition, all the examined texts give an image of the rural as closely connected to nature, whilst in contrast seeing the urban as closer to the idea and image of culture.