Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Title: Ship Breaker
By: Bacigalupi, Paolo
Published: 2010
Call #: YA Fiction Bacig.P

“Why are there so many dystopian and apocalyptic novels for young adults right now?” you may ask. I think it’s because the news is repeatedly giving us the unnerving and terrifying message that the adults in charge are destroying the world. Therefore, in order to be able to look forward to a future, teens need to feel that they can survive and perhaps make a difference. Global warming melting the ice caps so that all the coastal areas are flooded? Become a ship breaker, pulling apart and selling for salvage all the ocean going vessels that have wrecked on the drowned spires and penthouses of old cities.

Invent a new religion or two since the old ones no longer offer comfort. Find a new form of family since the former is broken. It’s all terribly dangerous and life threatening (and exciting for the reader) but you’ve got to try to endure in this awful world.

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