This is an excellent coming of age novel.

posted May 23, 2008 at 4:45PM

I can’t wait to read it.... I went to check it out the other day but it was already taken at both of the libraries by me.... Must be good!?

posted Jun 11, 2009 at 12:31PM

The House of the Scorpion is a hard world of drug lords, lost boys, computer implants, and clones. Between the U.S. and the nation formerly known as Mexico lies Opium, a country covered in poppy fields and ruled by the ruthless drug lord Matteo Alacrán, better known, because of his great age and power, as El Patrón. El Patrón keeps his country, his “eejits” (servants who have microchips in their brains to keep them slaving away without question), and his extensive family well under his thumb. El Patrón also has clones. Most clones get the numbing-and-dumbing brain chip, but not El Patrón’s. The newest Matteo Alacrán—young Matt—gets to grow up with a normal intelligence, though not, he soon learns, with a normal anything else. Clones are unnatural, lower than animals, inhuman monsters. But there are people who love Matt—Celia, the maid who raises him; Tam Lin, the bodyguard appointed by El Patrón; and María, a little girl who’s too young, innocent, and stubborn to let the usual prejudices guide her. Matt is occasionally called to the side of El Patrón and showered with gifts from the old man, but he’s mostly left to face the cruelty of the Alacrán family. Even when Matt discovers the truth about the real reason for his existence, escape is no guarantee of freedom. There are more trials to face, prejudices to overcome, a past to atone for, and a future that is uncertain to say the least. A Newbery Honor book, a National Book Award winner, and a recipient of the Printz Award for Young Adult Literature, this is work of fiction that borders uneasily on fact. There’s no guarantee that author Nancy Farmer has imagined a future that couldn’t really happen, which makes The House of the Scorpion a disturbingly addictive read.

posted Oct 8, 2009 at 3:21PM

A science fiction novel that is so realistic it will have you believing that if you cross the United States southern border, you will not encounter Mexico...

posted Jan 22, 2010 at 9:59PM

posted Jul 16, 2010 at 5:51PM

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