I really enjoyed reading Ship Breaker, it was suspensful with action and it was set in the future and really made you think about it. I picked out this book with the Printz award because I read a news article one day on ship breaking and when I saw the book I wanted to see what the author would do with it. Paolo Bacigalupi really added everything about ship breaking that I read in the article but set it in the future which really made it interesting.

        I would recommend this book to any one who enjoys a book with action and a great story to it. It really makes you think about the future because we all know that oil wont last forever or at least it will eventually become too expensive to afford for most people. BP estimates that we have 40 years of oil left at current useage give or take. So this book really could be realistic in the future when the oil has run dry.

        "Nailer sank like a stone through warm reeking liquid. It was like trying to swim through thick air instead of water. No matter how hard he fought, the warmth gave way under him, sucking him deeper." Nailer, the main character ended up falling into the most valuable substance that he could sell and get out of the ship breaking business forever, unless he drowns in it. Nailer couldnt help but think about how much money the oil was worth and that he could drown in it and never be able to use the wealth. I kept thinking whether he would live and end up living the rest of his life rich or die trying to get out but a life is more valuable than money.

      Nailer knew this and had to get out even if it meant never being able to use this oil to become the richest man on the beach. In this futuristic setting when all of the earth has been drained of oil for years it becomes the most valuable substance on the planet and people like Nailer dream of a day where they would find oil or gold or something that would let them escape from their terrible lives.

 

       The book has come down to three people, the main character Nailer, his friend Pima and a rich girl named Nita that they saved in a crashed ship. Nailer has come from a family where his mother died of disease and his father is an alcoholic and abuses him. Pima has a very nice family but is just as poor as Nailer and her mother Sadna, even saved them when they were captured by Nailers father. Nita is a rich girl that crashed on an island and acted like she was better than Nailer and Pima but eventually realised why they acted the way they did and grew on them. All of the characters revolve around loyalty and money but Nita doesnt get why they act the way they are because she came from one of the richest families in the world.

 

         I currently am reading Ship Breaker and as soon as I started reading this book I could tell I would enjoy it. There are three characters that the book concentrates on at all times but some come and go but the main character Nailer is always part of the group. Even just 50 pages in you can tell that they all value loyalty and everyone is family but money can get into the way of that. All of the characters in the book are desperate for money and work in ship breaking at Bright Sands Beach(which from what I can tell is somewhere maybe 250 to 500 miles from New Orleans) which is basically a beach that is covered in wrecked oil tankers that they are hired to venture inside of them risking death and injury for almost no pay. The reason they keep going is because there is a man called Lucky Strike who found a pocket of oil in a ship (The book is set in the future when there is no oil left and its very valuable) and sold it all and got out of the ship breaking business and is the richest man on the beach.

        This time that the book is set in really made me think because we all know that the prices of gas is going up and the oil wont be around in the future so it made me think about what could really happen in the future when oil isnt available any more.