Yeah, I know the last miscellaneous review was 4 months ago, stop judging me.
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SUMMARY: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer is an intriguing story about a young man who discovers he is a clone and must struggle to learn what this means. Matteo Alacran, a clone harvested from the DNA of El Patron, the Master of Opium, is treated poorly by the Alacran family and servants, despite his superior education and his attempts to fit in. After escaping death by fleeing to the neighboring nation of Atzlan, Matt faces isolation for reasons he never imagined. Source: http://www.bookrags.com
Pros: Unique setting, thought provoking topic, always has intense feeling, making me wonder what's going to happen next, great character development
Cons: multiple unnecessary plot points, after climax book falls flat
The House of the Scorpion is a great book, and Nancy Farmer definitely paints a picture, allowing me to envision every location in this alternate future perfectly. In fact, that's one of the many strong points of this novel, the settings. Each individual location is incredibly unique, (allowing for much more unique/dynamic plot points to develop) with Farmer describing every nook and cranny of the setting, allowing me to explore it, and make me feel like I'm really there.
Another great feature to this book is that there's always a wave of intensity over this book, making me eager to flip to the next page, to see what happens. There's always something brewing beneath the surface, and you have to key into every detail, or you might miss something.
However, this brings me to one of my (very few) gripes, unnecessary plot points. This book strives on details, sometimes going through 4 or 5 pages going through 5 seconds of a character's thought process. However, a large portion of the book is dedicated to side stories about the main character Matt, and while they are interesting and add to a sense of adventure present in the book, they deviate from greatly and in no way advance the main plotline, thus lengthening this already long novel about 100 extra pages.
So while these side quests do add another level to the adventurous feel found in this book, they greatly stall the main plotline, making for an overly long story.
Overall The House of the Scorpions is a great story, packing adventure, fear, dread, romance, and tearjerking moments all in to one incredible novel. While the story does fall flat after the climax (which occurs around the 200-250 page mark) Farmer more than makes up for it in her wonderfully detailed writing style, and her intricate character development, in which she captures each character's individual quirks every time they're present. So overall, if you haven't yet I'd definitely suggest you pick it up now! Before its sequel hits the shelves in September.
