Originally posted at Hooked on Books 
 Having just finished (and loved) the audio of Ship Breaker last week, I was excited to start reading The Drowned Cities. I knew it would be good, I just didn't expect it to be even more amazing than the first book! 
 The Drowned Cities serves as a companion novel to Ship Breaker. It takes place in the same world, but a different cast of characters dominate this story. I was happy to see more of Tool in this book. He was such a complicated and wonderful secondary character in Ship Breaker is was nice to learn more about him. I had some preconceived notions about his character and I was pleasantly surprised, as the more I read the more layers there were to his personality. The same goes for all the characters in this book. Not a single one is one dimensional or boring and even the so called "bad guys" were relateable (For example - the soldier, Ocho is probably one of my favourite characters of the year.) 
 The world building in this novel is also spectacular. I talked about Paolo's ability to paint a picture in my review of Ship Breaker, so I won't expand on it to much here, since there are a lot of similarities. I will say, however, that I preferred the jungle-like setting of The Drowned Cities more than the costal setting of Ship Breaker. I just didn't feel as cold and damp when I was reading this novel. 
 Finally, I like this novel, because it's clear that Paolo Bacigalupi respects his readers. In this horribly disturbing world he has created, he doesn't avoid the negative. He doesn't just allude to it or steer his characters away from it, which is a common gripe I have with some YA dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels. Here bad stuff happens and it happens to all the characters. People die, are tortured, have their lives immediately threatened in horrible ways. It is not a sugar coated world. This makes his stories even more realistic and gritty and so much more interesting to read about. 
 Final recommendation: A must read for anyone who is a fan of good storytelling with realistic characters. The Drowned Cities is now tied with The Wind up Girl for my favourite Paolo Bacigalupi novel and I will happily buy any book he writes the day it comes out from now on.