Review also posted at The Wandering Fangirl.

Sometimes I feel like I give a lot of dystopian YA fiction higher marks because I enjoy the genre so much, but Ship Breaker earns every bit of the high four star rating I've given it.

We're thrown right into this future world alongside Nailer, our hero, who does backbreaking, dangerous work for little gain. He's a fantastic teen to get to know, from his determination and goodness to his worries about becoming as bad a man as his father. Nothing about him is straightforward expect for his growing morality, and it's a joy to watch him navigate the world and to cheer him on from sequence to sequence.

There's plenty of action that, at times, make the book feel like it's moving at breakneck pace. The action is tempered by Nailer's characterization as well as the inclusion of Nita, a rich girl who may be the answer to all his problems. (And what of the inevitable romance, you ask? We go the entire book without one scene of instalove. Miracle of miracles.)

Along with Nailer and Nita are a fantastic cast of secondary characters, from Nailer's horrible father to a half-man (genetically modified human/canine hybrids), a ship's captain, and the crew Nailer works with and sees as family. Even if I didn't enjoy this genre and the constant action sequences, I'd be all over this book for the characters themselves.

Oh, OH, and my favorite part: the last quarter of the book turns into a sea battle like something out of a C.S. Forester novel. I have a great, great love for the Hornblower books, so anything resembling them gives me little thrills of delight.

Ship Breaker was all-around good fun, and if I didn't have a million books on my to-read list, I'd re-read it again right now.