Ship Breaker - a review by George Morejon

Ship Breaker
by Paolo Gacigalupi
**** stars

Ship Breaker is set in the future, somewhere along the Gulf coast. Thanks to things like giant sea storms, among other things, it's a harsh life in the day of someone on light team, what the scavengers who strip light materials from the old ships call themselves. Nailer's the main character, and around 15 and scrawny with a mother who's not there and a father who doesn't care. Perfect for a light crew worker. Life's hard in the crew though, always having to get enough goods like copper to survive. Miss your quota and you're done. There's no other work.

One day Nailer's out and about in the ship getting some copper like usual when the floor breaks and he's dumped in a room flooded with oil. After being betrayed by one of his fellow crew mates, he makes it out alive. Next time he goes down after a big storm, he finds a girl in an untouched ship. Would he return the favour of not saving someone in trouble, or would he save the girl?

Ship Breaker's an interesting book. It's also big, at around nine hours of reading. Everything's all super poverty, which is something I don't usually read. It's amazing how bad everything can seem, how cut throat. Nailer's personality made me feel on his side throughout the book, and the girl was interesting. For a rich girl, she was very street smart.