"The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer

This book is about a boy named Matteo Alacrán. He is not actually a boy, he is a clone of the drug lord El Patrón. El Patrón controls a country called Opium. It is a small strip of poppy fields between the United States and what was once known as Mexico. Matt was born form the womb of a cow. Matt grows up in entire secrecy, until he is found out by a group of kids. Unfortunately, curiosity gets the best of him, so he breaks a window and jumps out. He gets his hands and feet full of glass. He is taken to a mansion where he gets poor treatment for his injuries. He is locked in a room full of saw dust, and is treated like an animal for six months, until El Patrón comes by for his 140th birthday. After that day he is treated with respect, and gets his own body guard, music lessons, and teacher. Unfortunately the teacher turns out to be an eejit. An eejit is a person with a chip in their brain that turns them into zombies. The have to be told what to do. They are hungry when they are told to be hungry. Matt enjoys his life, until El Patrón has a heart attack. He gets a small donor heart to help him, but has another heart attack. Matt finds out that El Patrón needs Matt's heart, but Matt escapes, and heads across boarder. Will Matt find a new life in the US, or will he go back to Opium and turn things around? This realistic fiction book has some may twists and turns, that i must be a MUST READ on every ones list.


Rated: FIVE Stars (out of five stars)