Dystopian novels today have dominated the market. The creativity and intensity involved in the story captures the full attention of readers and mentally takes them places that they could never imagine on their own. The novel Ship Breaker by Science Fiction writer Paolo Bacigalupi is by no means an exception to that statement.

Nailer, a young, slender boy, works in a light crew team in the Ship Breaking company on the seemingly impoverished land of Bright Sands Beach. Life for him is an everyday struggle, constantly crawling his way through old, dusty service ducts in the search of any sort of light metal, while also worrying that he will be kicked from his crew in exchange for a younger, slimmer person. And as if these problems aren’t enough, Nailer is also forced to go home to his drunkard/druggy father, Richard, who happily beats him for simple misgivings. In all of this chaos that is described as Nailer’s life, the boy finds refuge in both his friend and her mother, Pima and Sadna. He often finds himself in the company of these two, and he sees no problem in asking either of them for help. This is expressed when, in a massive storm (known as a city killer by the beach inhabitants), Nailer simply states that his father is dead asleep in his foundationless house and Sadna immediately goes to carry Richard out of the old shack. After staying in shelter for an exceptional amount of time in protection from the storm, Pima and Nailer decide to go out far beyond what is usually traveled in a hunt for food. This trip is meant only to be a productive hang-out session, but it turns into something much larger than that when, out of nowhere, Nailer spots a large, modern ship filled with enough spoils to grant both himself, Pima, and Sadna a ticket off the beach.

The story, of course, does not end there. While scavenging through the large ship, Pima and Nailer find what looks like a dead girl who has a substantial amount of gold covering her skin. Pima nearly cuts the gold from what is known to them as this “swank”, when she suddenly blinks. Later on, Pima and Nailer talk with her and find that she is the owner of this extremely luxurious ship, and that she could get them some serious money if they are patient enough to wait for her father to come. Nailer is immediately stuck into a dilemma: kill the girl, take both her gold and the ships valuables to become the richest people on the beach, or trust the words of this girl whom he nearly killed and who has no reason to care for him or his people.

Ship Breaker is simply a brilliant book. Even though it is written in third-person, the reader can see understand, and feel all and every one of Nailer’s decisions and actions. The plot goes in no direction but forward, not once threatening to lead you off into sleep, but rather having you miss some sleep in order to get just that much deeper into the book. Paolo Bacigalupi proves himself worthy of writing in the Teen Fiction genre, seeing that this is only his first experience in writing a Teen Fiction book. And regardless of how many more books he writes, it can be expected that Ship Breaker will indeed keep the position as his greatest book.