30. The Perks of Being A Wall Flower

By Stephen Chbosky (140 pp, ebook)

At one point I was checking out stacks of recommended YA books from the library and I found that 4 out of 5 of them were unreadable crap so I stopped. This book was on the list although I never tried to read it. I saw a trailer for the movie and I thought it looked dreadful. Then I read an interview with the author and changed my mind about everything. I put the book on my nook for my trip and zipped through it. It's told in letters and when I saw that I did a big "uh-oh" but you know what? It's really good. It's about a weird kid who starts high school and is having hard time and trying to figure things out

29. Farthing

By Jo Walton (319 pp)

Since I liked Among Others I wanted to read other books by this author. I had no idea what this was about until I started it. It's an alternate history set in 1949 where Hitler is in control of the main part of Europe. It's a murder mystery set in England with wide range of people doing terrible things for various reasons. The story is told by the investigator and by a woman stuck in the middle of it. It's excellent.