Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Title: Ship Breaker 
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi 
Type: Young Adult Novel 
Genre: Science Fiction 
Series: Companion to The Drowned Cities 
Pages: 323 
Copyright: 2010 
Publisher: Little Brown and Company 
Rating: 3 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads.

A gritty, high-stakes adventure set in a futuristic world where oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer.

In America's Gulf Coast region, grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts by crews of young people. Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota-and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or by chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life....

In this powerful novel, Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.

Feelings: 
This book felt like it was trying to make a point about climate change. The oceans have risen and many cities are now underwater. Oil is scarce and the jungle has taken over the world that we know. The rich sail in clippers with para-sails that get shot up into the jet stream.

Nailer dreams about what it would have been like if he had not been born where he was. What might have been if Richard Lopez was not his father. What would have happened if he hadn't been able to get out of the oil. An event that changes the way he thinks. Could he leave someone to die like Sloth was going to do to him? But family is blood and Nailer doesn't leave his father to die even when a city killer sweeps the beach of all their houses and Richard is to high and drunk to wake up.

"My dad!" He waved back at his own shack, a shadow still miraculously upright. "He won't wake up!" Pima's mother stared through the blackness and rain towards the shack. Her lips pursed. "Hell. All right." She waved at Pima. "You take him up." (p. 65-66).

After the storm is over Nailer realizes that he can't just let someone die when he could help them even when he doesn't know that person.

What was wrong with him? Nailer wanted to punch a wall. Why couldn't he just be smart? Why couldn't he just crew up and cut the girl and take the scavenge? Nailer could almost hear his father laughing at him. Mocking him for his stupidity. But as Nailer stared into the drowned girls pleading eyes, they might as well have been his own. (p. 99-100)

Knowing what it felt like to be left to die Nailer can't do that to someone else. The act of saving the girl, Nita, changes how he views the world. It also leads to Nailer wondering about family and blood and what it really means.

This book is full of character development. It also stresses the importance of environmental consciousness in a new and different way. Placing the story on the gulf coast after there are no longer big cities because of the number of hurricanes and storms that hit the coast, creates a kind of awareness of what might happen without it seeming to be a dooms day environmental book.

I would recommend this book to readers that enjoy a good story with adventure, chase, and fighting.