As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population. Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants. For this section of the population, life remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages.
Although I enjoyed the book, The Hellbound Heart, the movie version, Hellraiser - with the awesomely cheesy blue and yellow 80's FX - is a bit better and mainly because it was more fully realized.
The book Downsiders by Neal Shusterman is a fabulous tale of secrets, lies, and the fear of the unknown. A teenage boy named Talon was out on a mission with his friends completing their first few tasks in order to enter adulthood. They were patrolling the underground tunnels that they live in, looking for fallers.