The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer

Greetings and Salutations everyone,

This is my review on the novel "The House of the Scorpion". To start it off the House of the Scorpion is a science fiction, dystopian novel. This novel has won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, Newbery Honor, and the Michael L. Printz Award. It's a fairly prestigious book by the looks of it.
This story is very well written, it follows the tale of Matteo Alacran a clone. One of the many clones of the very powerful dictator and drug lord, El Patron. At over 140 years-old you would think that this guy definitely shouldn't be alive, but he is. To top it off, he's evil. He is the leader of the Opium, a strip of bleach white poppies separating the United States and Mexico. Like a lot of dictators, El Patron is a bad guy. He has created and killed other clones prior to Matt. Basically, what he does is clone himself and when he is too old and his body begins to deteriorate, he harvests the clones organs to replace his own. Matt is still a clone although, unlike the others, he's allowed to keep his intelligence. In the beginning of the story everything is peaceful and life is a breeze for Matt, until he meets Emilia, Steven, and Maria. His life is forced to change for the better or for the worse. You could also say that Maria is Matt's significant other. Throughout the pages Matt does a lot of self loathing and has to go through a lot of troubles. Everyone calls him an animal and treats him like one, the only people that are friends with him, his bodyguard, Tam Lin, Ceclia the estates cook, and the daughter of a U.S. Senator. After he leaves the estate and escapes all his troubles and conflicts and to save his life, new enemies appear. Overall this book mainly is about how Matt struggles through the reality that he is a clone and how he tries to overcome everything.

The suspense in this book will surprise readers at many turns. It was a very promising novel to read. I appreciated how the author ended the story with some ambiguity. The first few chapters were incredibly slow and somewhat boring, but once it started to pick up to speed, it really went at a fast pace. I really enjoyed how this novel was so based in the distant future, but seemed so realistic. I think this book would quickly draw in both teens and adults. This was such a captivating and enthralling novel. My rating for this novel would be 9/10. Sequel???