SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi

I recently finished Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. This dystopian fiction is one of the best I have read in a while. If you are looking for an action pact page turner or just an awesome book, this should be your first choice.
            Ship Breaker is set in America’s Gulf Coast region. The main character, Nailer, is a ship breaker. A ship breaker is someone who breaks down beached oil tankers for scrap metal. After a giant hurricane, Nailer and his friend find a clipper ship. A clipper ship is a ship that only the richest of the rich own. Nailer finds the owner of the clipper, who happens to be a girl about the same age. He can either kill her and take all the loot for himself or help her get to her dad. The choice he makes soon turns into a deadly adventure.
            One of the best things about this book is the character development
Richard Lopez wouldn’t hesitate. He’d slash the rich girl’s throat and take the rings and shake the blood off them and laugh. A week ago, Nailer knew for a fact that he could have done the same. This swank girl wasn’t crew. He didn’t owe her anything. But now, after his time in the oil room, all he could think of is how much he’d wanted Sloth to believe that his life was just as important as hers.”
            That passage is an excellent example of how Nailer developed over the course of the book. He turned from a stone cold kid that didn’t take anything from anyone to someone who valued other’s lives.
            The plot development is absolutely one of the best out of the dystopian fiction genre. Everything somehow leads to the next in this novel. It starts out a little slow, then it turns into a heart pounding thrill ride that doesn’t make you want to let go until the very end. The pages almost turn themselves in this book.
            I give this book a 9 because of the awesome character and plot development. It was medium pace at first, and then it started to pick up. If you liked this book then you should get The Roar. Although they aren’t alike I still loved both of them.
Reviewed by Jacob Duncan
8th Grade

No comments:

Post a Comment