Page-turner weaves a wondrous tale
Written: Apr 20 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great story, excellent characters, good dialog.
Cons: It could have been longer, I was left wanting more.
The Bottom Line: This is a great book that explores many social situations that confront us daily. Excellent for teaching tolerance in young adults.
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| abhaille's Full Review: Nancy Farmer - House Of The Scorpion |
This book has it all. There is love, sacrifice, pride, envy, selflessness, greed and corruption. Almost every vice and most virtues appear in characters in this futuristic tale.
The story revolves around Matt Alacran, the clone of El Patron ,the most formidable and influential man in the zone of Opium that separates the United States and Mexico.
Matt is raised by the kindly Celia who is the only mother he ever knows. She hides him in her home until he is discovered by El Patron's great-great grandchildren. His status is revealed to the family and he is imprisoned by the household staff who are cruel and uncaring.
Rescued by El Patron, he is allowed to be educated, and as he grows he shows that he is bright and talented although his "clone" status causes him to suffer humiliation and discrimination.
Guarded by Tam Lin, a former Scottish terrorist--tough and scarred by a harsh life, Matt learns other lessons about how to survive and negotiate the desolate rough lands that surround El Patron's estate. He is taught kindness by Celia and caution by Tam Lin. He learns to love Maria, the child of a US Senator who supports El Patron's land of opium fields. Maria teaches him compassion.
In the background of the story are the ever present eejits, workers who have lost self-will that is replaced with computer chips that compel obedience. They perform mindless and repetitive tasks and even have to be told to stop working lest they work themselves to death. The looming threat of being turned into an eejit elicits almost blind obedience from almost everyone.
A dark secret looms in the future for Matt.
Can he survive to escape the tyranny of opium? As a clone, is he destined to become El Patron? How can he deal with the very different world that exists away from the controlled environment he's always known? The story will keep you turning pages to find out what can happen next.
Winner of the National Book Award, Newberry Honor Award and the Printz Honor Award, this title is suitable for teens. It features many social situations that will be familiar to the younger reader and demonstrates by examples ways to overcome adversity. It reads very well for an adult also.
The characters are well described and fleshed out. The story is fresh although the reader can empathize with many situations. The author creates a world that is close enough to our own reality to give one shivers.
It's 380 pages. I read it in a day, I couldn't put it down.
Highly Recommended
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
abhaille
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Location: Republic of Texas
Reviews written: 223
Trusted by: 101 members
About Me:
I've learned that the hardest to love are likely those that need love the most.
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