The House of the Scorpion

Sometimes it may be better not to read the synopsis or jacket blurb, but just to plunge right in to a book. I got stalled for a year or more on my Newbery project because I thought I didn't want to read this book, based on the information that it was about cloning and drug lords. Finally, it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal and I bought it. I was hooked from the first page of this suspenseful dystopian story. Farmer pulls no punches with either the "good guys" -- some of whom have horrendous pasts -- or the "bad guys" -- at least some of whom are more ambiguously "bad" than one might expect. Some adult situations as well as the general subject matter make this a book for the upper age range of the Newbery Awards' rules (say, 12-14 years show more old) and it can also be a great read for adults. There's a lot to think about in this story. Highly recommended. show less

The first time I read this book, I was in my first year of high school, I think. It was on display at the school library, with all its awards, and I couldn't resist. I don't remember much from my first impression of this book, except that I had a notebook filled with my book ratings from back then, and there was just a big solid question mark beside The House of the Scorpion. This book was the first book to blow my mind, and I'll never forget that.

Book content warnings:
child abuse
drug addiction/abuse
alcohol addiction/abuse

Matteo Alacrán isn't "human"; he's a clone. A clone of El Patrón, to be exact, the drug lord of Opium, a country between the United States and what was once Mexico. Treated like an animal by everyone but El Patrón show more himself, who admires him like one would admire an old school picture, Matt has to find his own path in life.

But it's like . . . way darker than that. I forgot how bleak and chilling this book is and how terrifying it can get.

I'm so glad it has characters like María (and later, Fidelito) who add a brighter note to the story and its general atmosphere. María is spirited and surprisingly quite flawed for a love interest/main female character, and it just makes her feel more realistic and lovable. She's excitable, quick to anger but quick to find beauty in the unremarkable. She's not one to immediately fall for, given that her view of Matt isn't too different from those around her for a while ("too different" as in, he's just like her dog, Furball, who doesn't know right from wrong, etc.). In that way, her character arc is so much more understandable and relatable.

And Matt. God, Matt. It's not surprising this book has as many awards as it does, because the plot and especially the main character, Matt, are so well written. He has conflicting feelings towards El Patrón, an evil man, but a man who also bestowed kindness unto him. He should hate him, but despite himself, he always feels a wave of affection when the man's name is mentioned. Abusive relationship at its finest (and other factors too that I might not understand).

I'm also so glad the second half of the book is so different from the first. It takes Matt outside the setting he's used to, and outside his "comfort zone" when it comes to his social standing. He has a chance to start over and become a new person. To find his own way, find his own personality, self worth, etc.

I can't wait to see what else happens to Matt. The sequel was published more than ten years after The House of the Scorpion. It's been a long wait! show less

Matt is the clone of an evil and powerful man, a drug lord who controls a huge chunk of land along what used to be the border between the United States and Mexico. As a clone, Matt is considered less than human and treated accordingly, but fortunately not everybody is on board with this.

This book has apparently won a bunch of awards, including the Newbery, and I can see why. The SF tropes it features are pretty familiar by now, maybe even over-familiar, but Farmer handles them really well, in a way that made me almost forget I'd seen them so often before. She does a good job with the world-building, too, letting us gradually come to understand the world Matt was born into, in all its horrors, as he slowly comes to understand it himself. show more And it is pretty horrible. I'm not sure exactly what age group this is primarily aimed at -- by the writing style and the age of the protagonist by the end of the book, I'd guess middle school and up -- but it strikes me as surprisingly dark for a kids' book. But it's effectively so, and the story, the world, and the characters are engaging and real-feeling. Heck, even the over-the-top evil of the drug lord character somehow feels believable and human.

Rating: 4/5, although if this wasn't adult me rating a book whose writing is aimed at kids, I suspect I'd be giving it a half star more. show less

Matt is growing up on the vast estate of El Patrón, the immensely wealthy and powerful drug overlord, who controls the land between the US and Aztlan, formerly known as Mexico. He experiences the benefits of El Patrón's favor: a good education, excellent food, and life in the palace, but he is also an outcast, and considered by nearly all but the master as no better than an animal. He is El Patrón's clone, and therefore less that human. When he finally realizes why he's been created and that his life is in danger, the few friends he has help him plan an escape to Aztlan, but will he make it, and if he does, what kind of life will he find there?

This Newbery Honor Book feels more like a YA than a middle grade novel; it's dark and grim show more in places, and I suspect that some younger readers might be troubled by it. But regardless of whether it should be in the Newbery or Printz categories (it did win a Printz award, too), this was an excellent read. It pulled me in from the start and the unique story and good pacing kept me turning pages as fast as I could. show less

Note: This review contains mild spoilers.

The House of the Scorpion is a novel intended for young adults, but it is only distinguishable as that by the youth of its main characters and the sometimes simplistic straightforwardness of the writing. The themes it addresses — the outsider, the moral obligations of those in power, the determination of nature vs. nurture — are much more complex and will appeal to readers of any age.

The House of the Scorpion is set 140 years in the future, in a dystopian country called Opium or Dreamland, located between the U.S. and Mexican (now Aztlan) borders. Opium was founded by a drug lord named El Patrón in a deal with its bordering countries to eliminate illegal immigration and funnel the drug trade show more to Asia, Europe and Africa. El Patrón rules Opium absolutely, modeling it on a fantasy version of his childhood Mexico. His Farm Patrol captures illegals and lobotomizes them, turning them into slaves called “eejits” or “zombies” to work the opium fields. El Patrón keeps himself alive by harvesting organs and tissue as needed from clones of himself, whose brains are also destroyed.

Except, in his hubris, El Patrón decides to keep the brain of of one his clones, a boy named Matt, intact. The novel is divided into sections based on Matt’s age and important periods in his life, from youth to middle age to old age. Never intended to have a long life, Matt’s “death” — and most critical turning point — comes at age 14, when he discovers that his true purpose is not to take over the family business from El Patrón, but to supply his next heart. The House of the Scorpion is Matt’s coming-of-age story, and at this point when Matt escapes to Aztlan, he begins the final process of becoming himself: no longer a despised, inferior clone, an outsider, but a true leader.

Sharing El Patrón’s genetics, Matt also shares many of his characteristics: pride, innate leadership, the drive to do what is necessary to achieve his goals. For most of his youth, although he is largely ostracized, Matt is not completely alone. Three people highly influence him: Celia, the woman who raises him and loves him unconditionally; Tam Lin, his bodyguard, who teaches him about the world and who believes in him; and Maria, his childhood friend who shows Matt that he is capable of being loved, despite being a clone. These are influences that El Patrón lacked. So when Matt comes into his own as a leader, he has the potential to do what El Patrón never could: to correct the egregious moral sins of his culture.

The House of the Scorpion won many honors, including the Newbery Award and the National Book Award for young adult literature. show less

The first 4/5 of novel this is an excellent hard to read at times but also hard to put down coming of age story, very much like a Dickens novel that uses the life of a small child to highlight social ills, except these ills are in the future. The setting is a future Mexico that has split into the small independent Opium, devoted to the growing, processing, and selling of said narcotic, and Aztlan, the rest of former Mexico, about which we learn more late in the book. Matteo is the only surviving member of 36 clones of the drug lord El Patron. Born in a cow, raised in isolation, Matteo understands almost nothing of the world, but I think any YA reader knows exactly what his fate is to be and why the first few section titles are "Youth: 0 show more to 6", "Middle age: 7 to 11" and "Old age: 12 to 14". His early years with his caretaker Celia are fine, but then he's found. As a clone, he is no more than cattle. He' taken to an orphanage and locked in a room filled with chicken litter to absorb his piss and shit. Things do improve from that, but this is a very dark young adult story. What makes it work so well is the richness of the key characters and their interrelationships-- Matteo, Maria, El Patron, and Tam Lin. Unfortunately, for me, the book drops into to more standard YA adventure in the final section "La vida nueva", heavy on plot, but lacking the complexity and sharp edges of what has gone before.

Still highly recommended. show less

I'd be lying if I said The House of the Scorpion didn't completely hold my attention.

While the pacing in this book was a bit slow and meandering, I quickly became interested in what happened to the various characters. I immediately loved Maria for all her spirit and care and her character arc made so much sense to me - I felt like it moved flawlessly. But it wasn't just Maria. Matt, the main character, was interesting enough within the confines of his existential crisis. The side characters were all interesting in one way or another and I really appreciated the way that Nancy Farmer always came back with surprises and developments about her characters. Nobody was forgotten.

My personal favorites? Maria, who grew up alongside our show more protagonist, and Tam Lin. Generally I love a good "found family" story, but I particularly liked Tam Lin as that stand-in father figure. There were twists and nuances to his character that made the ending particularly heart-wrenching for me, as well as a brief twist in the middle.

It's not the characters, though, that make The House of the Scorpion truly interesting. It's the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is fantastic. And it's all there - blossoming out like a blooming rare flower. We start in a small part of the world with a limited frame of reference in this dystopian landscape... then as Matt grows, so does the world around him. The world in The House of the Scorpion is familiar enough to feel possible while being deplorable enough to warrant caution to its readers. That is a solid dystopia, and much more subtle than many that are written after the YA dystopia boom with The Hunger Games and Divergent.

And, by the way, that is precisely what The House of the Scorpion is: YA. It's a much more mature tone than I'm used to seeing in YA, especially YA dystopia. The voice almost felt like adult dystopia, and the closest thing I can think to compare the writing style to is N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. It's a beautifully written dystopia with a fascinating concept and moral conversation - clones and personhood. I can't emphasize enough how much I appreciated the construction of this dystopian world.

But, alas, The House of the Scorpion isn't perfect. As I mentioned earlier, the pacing is slow and meandering. If it was written to be a slice of life, or a sort of expose about the world, I'd more readily accept the cadence... but it's a duology with the ultimate goal of conquering a drug empire and while I'm curious about where this is headed, the story was so slow for something that seemed like it should have so much excitement.

There were also some early scenes in the novel which, though I found them interesting from a philosophical perspective regarding the status of personhood, did not lend much to the story itself and could have been cut. At the time The House of the Scorpion was written, YA was not a clearly defined genre and I imagine this book would have been more marketed to the science fiction crowd - to me, that explains many of the indulgences. It really doesn't feel like a typical YA novel, and while that doesn't make it any less of an interesting book, it also means it's best to go in with different expectations. Because I have read a variety of adult dystopias (from 1984 to Logan's Run) the style didn't throw me badly and I appreciated the very different setting. This, however, would turn off many other readers.

If you're a fan of a good dystopia with younger characters growing up in a different world, this is probably a good book to pick up. Also, remember that old movie The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlet Johansson? Love that movie! Fans of that film and it's dystopian concepts will certainly appreciate aspects of The House of the Scorpion. I was interested enough to listen to this book over the course of two days, and I'm curious to see where the story will take us next. show less