Book review 27 - The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Pages: 380
Publisher: Athenuem
Publication date: 2002
Summary: 
Matteo Alacran was not born; he was harvested with the DNA from El Patron, lord of a country called Opium. Can a boy who was bred to guarantee another’s survival find his own purpose in life? And can he ever be free?
My thoughts:
I'm so happy that I've been reading such unique books lately! Before now I had heard of this book, as is normal since it's quite old, but I had no idea what it was about. I saw it recently at the library and read the blurb and it interested me so when I found it really cheap at a used bookstore I decided to buy it.
I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed it.
The setting is probably my favourite part. I love that it's pretty much in Mexico. I feel like there are a lack of books that are set in Mexico and it was refreshing to read a little bit about their culture and urban legends and things. 
This book is such a great fantasy book. I love the eejits, the idea of clones and everything else. It's futuristic but doesn't feel that way at all. It felt like it could have been modern day. 
The characters were also great. Matt was such a precious child and I felt so bad for him so much throughout the book. His life was so tragic and sad. Celia is another character I love because she was so loving and Tam Lin was probably my favourite minor character. The antagonists in this book are so well written because I was so frustrated with them the entire time I read the book!

My one and only problem was Ton Ton's dialogue. The author kept including random "uh" in the middle of every sentence and I didn't understand what they were meant to be? Maybe a stutter or something but either way it would lose the flow of the book for me. Thankfully he was not in a lot of the book but I am hoping that by the second book this will be easier to read or less of an issue for Ton Ton.

Such a creative and unique book!

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