Ship Breaker

Tada, I have read two asigned books, and now I have read three! I looked around on other people's blogs, but only one review of Ship Breaker. So I was unprepared for this book. When I was reading it, it had the same sort of feel as House Of The Scorpion. It even was similar. Half men=Idjits, Nailer's father=Matt's "father", The guy who helped Matt escape=Tool, The whole clone harvesting, I have to escape= I helped Nita run away from Pyce, I have to escape. But still, it was a good book.

It starts out with a whole bunch of confusing belief systems (the rust saint, the fates, and the scavenger god) and a whole bunch of confusing concepts (half-men, the life cult, and the ship breakers). Nailer is a light crew person, meaning that he crawls into the ships and strips off the wiring and copper, while heavy crew strips off the ship parts from the ship. After escaping from an oil room in a ship, Nailer is considered as Lucky Boy, and his abusive father stays away from him for a while. But when he and Pima find a clipper ship, with a live rich girl in it. Every thing changes. After making her swear a blood oath that Nailer, Pima, and her (Nita) were crew and had each other's back, she tells them her story. She says that she is being chased by her fathers enemies who want her for leverage to make her father smuggle illegal goods for them, or something like that. Then Nailer's father's mostly heavy crew finds the clipper and her. When the find out that the people who came ashore are not her award giving family, they want to kill her, but then when the people (her enemies) offer money, they prepare to sell Nita. Nailer, Nita, and Tool, a Half-man who somehow wasn't loyal to his "master" escape to where her father's loyaler ship crews could help her. When they get to New Orleans, or what was left of it after some city killers or Hurricanes destroyed it and New Orleans II, Nita is lost and Tool refuses to help Nailer take on Nita's father's enemies. His reasoning being that he will not jump into un-winnable battles like any other Half-man. So Nailer and the loyal crew of the Undauntless sail off to find Nita. Soon they get caught in a beggining city killer, while being followed by the ruthless Pole Star. The same ship that Nita was running from when she crashed into the shore. Nailer offers a suggestion that might help them escape. As they near his beach he worked as a Ship Breaker on, he says that they could go through a gap in "The Teeth" (a bunch of drowned buildings that shred up ships like teeth) which the Pole Star cannot get through. Then they could board it and get Nita. They do. But when Nailer finds Nita, she is with his father, who is saying she is now "body scavenge" (a term for dead people who wash up on shore, who are then broken like ships). Nailer then fights with his dad and ends up killing him by turning on the gears for something extendable that will grind up anything in them, in this case, Nailer's father. He then escapes with Nita  and is given a reward and so does Pima who then are able to sort of get off the streets, or in this case, beach.

Themes: One prominent one is that killing should hurt. And if it doesn't, there is something wrong with you. There is also another one about loyalty, that sometimes no loyalty is good (Tool betraying his master for a good purpose) and sometimes loyalty can be good (the crew of the Undauntless saving Nita). Themes in there that were in the similar book, House Of The Scorpion: Something about that everyone deserves life, Nita, even though she is rich and none of the Ship Breakers would care about her. And Matt, he's a clone, but he deserves to live even though he is just meant to be harvested. Other than that, I can't think of any others.