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Feb 08, 2012

Tatiana rated it:

As seen on The Readventurer

This was quite a ride! I know I will probably sound blasphemous here, but I think Ship Breaker is a much better suggestion for fans of The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1) as the next dystopian YA fix than other popular offerings in the genre - The Maze Runner, Birthmarked, Gone, Incarceron, Uglies, etc.

Written by a male author, Ship Breaker is, of course, lighter on lurve, kissing and emotional "stuff" than The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1) More...

28 comments like (40 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

karen rated it:

this book is fine.

it had a good amount of violence and intrigue, it had a well-developed sense of atmosphere, i liked the beginning 1/3 of it very much, but then... i don't know. i'm not sure whether my mediocre response is justified or if i had just read too many books right before this that i enjoyed a whole bunch more. this one just kind of beigely occurred. it just felt like something i would put on the tv while i fold the laundry - the book equivalent of NCIS or without a trace More...

13 comments like (38 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Maggie rated it:

I read this in early summer looking forward to seeing it live up to all the awesome reviews I read. I was totally disappointed.

To sum things up, I think it shouldn't have been published. Yet. He has a great world and a great story -- the whole idea of ship breakers is AMAZING and his world building is solid -- but three things really bugged me the whole time I was reading:

1. His actual writing. (I thought) he needs editing, big time. His sentences didn't flow for me and h More...

5 comments like (11 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2011

J. rated it:

I really liked the writing in this tremendously dark YA novel of a post-oil, climate-crashed world. The vision of the future is convincing and compelling, the protagonists and villains vivid, and the story had a lot of momentum. Very, very solid.

addendum: ...and it's still sticking with me a couple months later, and I bought the hardcover.

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Morgan rated it:

Ship Breaker takes places in a gritty, grim future, where the divide between the rich and the poor is deeper than ever. The poor grow up like Nailer, a youth who lives in a little shack on a beach off the Gulf Coast with his abusive, drugged-up father. Like everyone else on the beach, Nailer must work hard to survive, stripping washed-up oil rigs for the raw materials, but even hard work is not enough to guarantee survival in his dog-eat-dog world. Nailer can rely on hardly anyone, besides hi More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

prettybooks rated it:

We’re transported to a harsh, poverty-stricken world as soon as we turn to the very first page of Ship Breaker. Nailer is struggling to breathe and see ahead as he earns a measly living by salvaging scrap metal from grounded, derelict ships. He is part of a group known as “light crew”. It’s dangerous work, but worth it for the chance to get a Lucky Strike – mainly the discovery of oil, which is extremely scarce and thus will make its discoverer instantly rich.

It is clear that Paolo B More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2010

your neighborhood librarian rated it:

You want my one-line recommendation? This is the most exciting book I have read since Emma Clayton's The Roar. Action, plot, an interesting world... deeper questions of what makes family, what makes a person valuable, and to whom and to what do we owe our loyalty... oh man. I am totally hoping there is a second book.

Full review on Pink Me: http://pinkme.typepad.com/pink-me/2010/0...

7 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2010

Minli rated it:

I read Ship Breaker just after reading Neal Shusterman's Unwind, which I found to be an interesting and completely unintentional companion. Both are YA dystopian fiction set vaguely in the future, but otherwise feel too close for comfort. While Unwind is over reproductive rights, Ship Breaker is about the ecological disaster that's the gulf coast, with oil spills, category six hurricanes, and pollution.

Living in New Orleans, Nailer is a ship breaker, a small youth that salvages useful More...

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2011

Emily rated it:

Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Ship Breaker!

I didn't even stop to eat dinner last night, as I had to see what would happen. Nailer, the protagonist in the story, who has the soul of a Gladiator, must fight to stay alive on the shores of Bright Sands Beach where he disembowels old ships for sheet metal in order to eat. Sustaining himself on a mere starvation diet and avoiding his abusive father are his two daily challenges until he finds a clipper ship worth enough to buy his free More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2011

Amelia, the pragmatic idealist rated it:

4.5

I'd almost given up on dystopians when I picked up Ship Breaker. Dystopian worlds were either interesting-but-improbable (Wither), too-improbable-to-be-interesting (Delirium), or clean-but-just-not-interesting (Matched). And then along came Ship Breaker.
BAM! There's a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world that seems like it could actually happen.
BAM! It's a world that's scary, urgent, and one to be taken very seriously.
BAM! A character who's likable but definitely an und More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2011

Margo rated it:

A hard core dystopian world of the future after global warming has raised the level of the oceans. New Orleans is now underwater and oil and gas has been depleted. High-tech sailing ships now roam the oceans and the rusting hulks of diesel ships have become the gritty world of the "ship breakers" - aggressive gangs that tear down the old ships for parts. Children work in these gangs because small bodies are needed to scramble through the ducts.

I both loved and feared this a More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 25, 2010

Kathleen rated it:

Very enjoyable dystopian read. The world building and character development were excellent, and the language was poetic enough to reflect the beauty and ugliness of the world, without being over the top... enjoyed Nailer's realization that the world looked different depending on who you were, whether you were a beach rat or a swank: "To him, it looked like home. He wondered what Nita saw." I also loved that race wasn't an issue... everyone was shades of brown, tan, and cream, with a ra More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2011

Steph Su rated it:

Bacigalupi's writing is vivid and tense, and I love the world that he has created here, full of gritty danger and dog-eats-dog, eye-for-an-eye, every man for himself competition. I never fully felt much empathy for the characters though; for me, it felt like, while the writing was superb and great for the genre, the characters were lacking in the heart and humanity that I crave from any book I read. They seemed like stonehearted actors playing out their roles instead of real people, real teenage More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2011

Krista added it

A timely book set in a post-Katrina Gulf Coast where New Orleans is completely submerged, and people no longer depend upon oil for energy. Nailer and his crew are ship breakers, who spend their days inside wrecked tankers, removing parts for salvage. Nailer's work is risky, dark, and dangerous. His life outside the tanker is even more precarious, with an abusive father and a precarious existence spent on the edge of starvation or annihilation by the powerful storms that regularly course through More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Gwen rated it:

Too much horrifying violence, drug references and Father-son child abuse for my tastes.
In our family of 4, there were two males and two females who listened to these 8 audio CDs. The males would definitely give it a higher rating than the females, regardless of age. The action and sense of place are well done.
The author just did not make me care about the characters as much I did in simliar dystopian teen novels such as "The Hunger Games" trilogy, "Unwind" or " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

Michelle rated it:

After having this book recommended to me, I was extremely disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that it isn’t exciting. It’s not that Mr. Bacigalupi doesn’t drive a high-caliber story. And it’s not that he doesn’t create quality characters. But it’s sinister, gory, and Mr. Bacigalupi can’t go one paragraph without the word d—. He can’t seem to show frustration, anger or emphasis any other way.

The world in which Nailer lives is unforgiving and harsh. He earns a living by ri More...

0 comments like

Feb 22, 2012

J.C. rated it:

I really liked Ship Breaker. It had a great start: in a not-so-distant future where the Gulf Coast is littered with old, abandoned steamer ships, poor beach-rat type people make a living ripping the old ships apart and scavenging valuable remains. I love a new world that is similar enough to my own where enough is the same that one doesn't need a constant definition of foods, how doors work, yadda, yadda - but it's different enough to be exciting and dangerous, and a little weird. The main ch More...

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Feb 21, 2012

Bobbie rated it:

I'll be honest, I did not think I liked this book after I finished reading it yesterday, but after thinking about it for a day, I have changed my mind. Ship Breaker is an uncomfortable book because it brings up questions of humanity, desperation, and loyalty. It makes us question what humanity actually is, and whether goodness and loyalty are actual human characteristics - or characteristics that we choose only when they help us survive.

This book has people in desperate situations and More...

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Feb 21, 2012

Michelle rated it:

I really thought the book was really interesting to see how much in the future that society has really decayed and that survival supercedes morals. I did think that Nailer was lucky too many times and that soon his luck should have ran out, I guess that is why they call him lucky boy. The book really pulled me in with the politics of living and survival. I thought the author did a really good job at helping his characters to change and to learn new worlds around them. Sometimes while reading I w More...

0 comments like

Feb 20, 2012

Jackie rated it:

When looking for a new book for a read aloud for my 9th grade homeroom, I found Ship Breaker. I'm not certain I'll choose it as a read aloud; however, I will definitely recommend it to my class and school librarian. This novel is a National Book Award Finalist and a Printz winner, and I can see why. It's full of action and adventure. I was hoping it was as engaging as Hunger Games, and it is in different ways. It is set in a dystopian version of our world that has apparently seen a great de More...

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Feb 19, 2012

Victoria rated it:

This coming-of-age novel is a bit slow to start, but ultimately engrossing. What stands out for me aren't the characters, which are not very deeply drawn, or the plot, which is relatively predictable (shipwrecked rich girl rescued by gutter rat, flight from bad people wanting to use rich girl as pawn, big fight, big rescue), but the meticulously detailed, multi-layered, entirely plausible post-climate change world in which the action takes place--where our own "Accelerated Age" and the More...

0 comments like

Feb 13, 2012

Barb rated it:

Nailer is foraging for copper wire in the guts of an old tanker that has washed up on shore. The work is grimy, claustrophobic and very dangerous. Nailer is with a group of teenagers whose nasty boss expects them to meet their copper-wire quota or else they will be easily replaced by other youths. Nailer’s world is ugly. His Dad beats him. Many people are high on drugs. Some sell their own blood for money. Some kidnap others and sell them for organ parts. Living in this degenerate futuristic soc More...

0 comments like

Feb 08, 2012

Zoie rated it:

Dear Paolo Bacigalupi,

Please get a thesaurus. "Feral" was a great word the first time, and maybe even the second, but after six I started to get upset.

The book put out some interesting ideas, but in the end I think I'm going to have to group it with Wall-E and Happy Feet. I was so excited about all of these subtle hints that Bacigalupi was giving us, about the inconvenient truths that became inconvenient realities, and then BAM- he threw it right in my face. I gues More...

0 comments like

Jan 28, 2012

Ivo rated it:

Ship Breaker is an awesome book. In my opinion it wasn't quite as good a The Windup Girl, but there's a simple explanation for that. Ship Breaker is a young adult novel, which seriously hampers Bacigalupi's ability to make the story as gritty and engrossing as that of The Windup Girl. Viewed as a stand-alone effort however Ship Breaker is an excellent work in and of itself. The post-apocalyptic world it's set in is extremely well-crafted, viscerally believable. Bacigalupi also does an excel More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Bethany rated it:

Nailer is a teenager working on light crew as a ship breaker. That is, he and other children--small enough to wriggle through ducts on old wrecked ships--scavenge through huge, ancient ships to get copper wiring, anything useful. He lives with his father, his father who is an amphetamine addict who beats Nailer on a whim, and they're dead, dirt poor. Then a city killer comes along--a hurricane stronger than anything we've ever seen, the kind that destroys entire cities and makes them into not More...

0 comments like

Jan 24, 2012

Micah rated it:

Rust, Oil and recycled ships. Flash forward, the year is unknown they stopped keeping track when we ran out of oil. We have bigger problems to face than counting down the days to death. In Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi it gives you a window through time into an alternate reality. Recorces are scarce but loyalty is even scarcer.A young boy named Nailer works on light crew and dreams of a way of escape. Light crew is for teens like him to earn some Chinese Red Cash (currency) by scavenging copp More...

1 comment like

Jan 19, 2012

Myeve123 rated it:

Continuing my YA reading, I like the start of this book. The main character's voice, Nailer, is okay. He's a good guy, he chooses what is "right" by saving Nita. I notice that in YA books I read with male protagonist, there isn't much meandering in emotion. Unlike Boyd in Evenfall, who'd go on and on and on in his thoughts and feeeelings. But then again, it's not classified as YA, although Boyd is what, seventeen? Nineteen? Ack. I digress.

I'd like to see more deep POV exp More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2012

Lou rated it:

In all, I was quite disappointed with this one.

It was recommended to me by a friend who is the manager of a Barnes and Nobles (usually a good source), and, if I am not mistake, has won awards.

However. I found the story line to not only drag, but lack suspense or tension. The main character seemed to always understand his father's actions, and informed us of such which means no surprises, and although Bacigalupi tried to create a foundation of untrustworthiness between the c More...

1 comment like

Dec 28, 2011

Travis rated it:

This week I’m reviewing another book I *had* to read for class. In truth, I chose it from several possible options, and I’m glad I did. Ship Breaker is an excellent book with a few minor flaws that, unless you’re really looking for a reason to hate it, shouldn’t really bother you. Let’s begin.

In an interview after the publication of Ship Breaker, PabloBacigalupi (the author of the award-winning Windup Girl) said that he wanted to set the book in a “post-oil future,” where we’ve used up More...

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Dec 12, 2011

Jessica rated it:

3.5/5, rounded up to 4.

I would categorize this as the YA entry in Bacigalupi's post-oil-contraction-world canon. It was a quick and energetic read, neither as in-depth nor as disturbing/thought provoking as The Windup Girl or the relevant short stories in Pump Six and Other Stories. Make no mistake: it's the same desperate world. The hard edges & dark undercurrents are present, but being that the book is aimed at a younger audience, they're not dealt with as explicitly as in other e More...

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