Ship Breaker (National Book Award Finalist)

Paolo Bacigalupi

May 2010 · Sold by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

About this ebook

Set in a dark future America devastated by the forces of climate change, this thrilling bestseller and National Book Finalist is a gritty, high-stakes adventure of a teenage boy faced with conflicting loyalties.

In America's flooded Gulf Coast region, oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer. 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, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a fast-paced adventure set in the vivid and raw, uncertain future of his companion novels The Drowned Cities and Tool of War.

"Suzanne Collins may have put dystopian literature on the YA map with The Hunger Games...but Bacigalupi is one of the genre's masters, employing inventively terrifying details in equally imaginative story lines." —Los Angeles Times

A New York Times Bestseller
A Michael L. Printz Award Winner
A National Book Award Finalist
A VOYA 2010 Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers Book
A Rolling Stone 40 Best YA Novels Book

Don’t miss the other books in the series:
The Drowned Cities
Tool of War

Ratings and reviews

This novel is quite engaging and there is hardly a dull moment throughout the novel. Paolo preaches the importance of loyalty and keeps the reader hooked by pushing the theme of loyalty to the max. To what extent do you let loyalty define you? I wish the ending went into a little more detail. Throughout the novel you are always looking towards the end. "How is this all going to play out?". Then once you actually reach the end of the novel, the ending is quite brief and abrupt in my opinion. Nonetheless, great novel, and highly recommended.

This is a solid, pretty traditionally plotted, dystopian sci-fi adventure. It is beautifully written (as you'd expect) with interesting characters, but there's not much to really surprise you or make you think. Compared to windup girl it is pretty flat, but compared to the majority of sci-fi floating around it's a work of art. Short, sweet, and a fun read.

Great, but not perfect. At times you did use the same word to many times, but the story was unbelievable. I couldn't put the book down I actually finished it the same day I got it. It took me 5-6 hours, but it was worth it. Great job on the book a great dystopia book and I truly enjoyed reading it. 4/5

About the author

Paolo Bacigalupi is the author of the highly acclaimed The Drowned Cities, Tool of War,and Ship Breaker, a New York Times bestseller, Michael L. Printz Award winner, and National Book Award finalist. He is also the author of the Edgar Awards nominee The Doubt Factory; a novel for younger readers, Zombie Baseball Beatdown; and two bestselling adult novels for adults, The Water Knife and The Windup Girl. His first work of collected short fiction was Pump Six and Other Stories. He co-wrote The Tangled Lands with Tobias S. Buckell. The winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, John W. Campbell Memorial, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards, he lives in western Colorado with his wife and son. The author invites you to visit his website at windupstories.com.