Ship Breaker

Hmm. I wanted to read this because it was this year's Printz winner, but it didn't really sound like my kind of book. My fondness for the Hunger Games aside, I'm generally not a huge fan of dystopias, especially ones where children have impossibly grim hopeless lives. The kids in Ship Breaker climb through the ducts and stuff of shipwrecks, stripping them of copper wire and stuff, until they get too big (around age 15 or so) and then either get a bigger job, become a prostitute, or starve to death basically. WOO HOO.

That said, I got more into it than I expected. Especially once they left the beach (and things got a little less hopeless). The characters are good, the action is exciting and page-turning, and the world is well-built. It's just pretty grim.

I notice this is Ship Breaker #1 and I have to say I would probably read the sequel–I like where the story ended and I'm very interested to know more about Tool. It seemed like Bacigalupi was hinting at a much bigger story for him–I'll be very disappointed if he's not in the sequel.