The House of the Scorpion

TheHouse of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer.

Nancy Farmer has written many other books such as Trolls Trilogy, The Warm Place and A Girl Named Disaster. She has written a lot of foreign books such as The House of the Scorpion, The Warm Place and A Girl Named Disaster. She has a whole section called African Novels.

The House of the Scorpion is the story of a teenage boy named Matt who is a clone of a very powerful 142 year old drug lord. named El Patron. The setting for the story is in the future, but I am not so sure how far into the future. I hope far in the future based on the bleak outlook.  The story might be categorized as science fiction, but I think it is close to what could really happen someday.

The main part of the story of Matt’s struggle to find his place in the world. He is a clone, grown in the belly of a cow and there is an ethical dilemma about what he and other clones can be used for in society and what they represent. He is raised by a lady named Celia, who is one of El Patron’s servants. It is a secret that Matt is a clone until he gets hurt and is taken to a doctor. Then he is kept in a cell and his friend Maria feeds him and still cares for Matt without caring about his status as a clone or human.

Then El Patron learns that Matt is locked in a cell, he has him released and assigns him another caretaker named Tam Lin. After that El Patron has a heart attack and  Matt learns  the tough lesson that his purpose is to provide a new heart for El Patron. After that he story and Matt’s life changes. The story confronts some tough questions like: Is it right to produce a person to keep another alive? Is it okay to produce clones to do work that nobody wants to do? In this story Matt is produced like others who came before him, to keep a drug lord king alive. There is a lot in the book about classes of people and how they can be treated so differently in the same world. In the story, Matt goes from being treated like a prince, to a child laborer.

The theme of the story is about humanity. What is a human? Can somebody be alive and not be human? What does it mean to be a human? I think that even though Matt was considered a clone, he was still human. There were quite a few characters in the book that were not very human, like El Patron.

Over all Nancy Farmer has written many good books but from looking at some of the other ones she has written this one sounds the best to me. If I had to choose another book of hers I would read the sequel to this book.

I liked the book because it made me think a lot about how people are treated differently in society. I was disappointed though because there was a big focus on Matt’s treatment as a clone and what would happen to him, then it was sort of dropped. I would recommend the book, but it is not outstanding as far as I am concerned. I am not sure if I will read the sequel.

Book Review by Jake Y.