Author: Nancy Farmer
Title: The House of the Scorpion
Rating: 4.5
Reviewer: B.G. Grade: 7
Review:
The House of the Scorpion is about a boy named Matt who lives in the poppy fields with a servant named Celia. He meets some people that takes him into their home because he got hurt when he stepped into glass. The people there at first did not want to treat him because they tell him that he is not a human being but only a clone of the ruler El Patron who is more than hundred years old. No one likes him because he is a clone. He then moves into El Patron's mansion where he is treated very badly. At the mansion he learns about eejits who are people that are controlled by chips in there brain. The people turn into eejits if they are bad. Matt also learns that the writing on his foot which says Property of the Alacran Estate means that he is a clone. Then one day El Patron sees that he is treated badly and orders everyone to show respect to him and even gives him a body guard named Tam Lin. At the mansion he meets a girl named Maria who he likes very much but the people in the house doesn’t like that he likes Maria. Maria is then sent to boarding school. During the time that Maria was gone Matt learned that everything that belongs to the El Patron will always belong to El Patron. Then he learned that the symbol for the Alacran family is the scorpion. Later on he found out that there were more clones before him. Seven more of El Patron. Matt also learned that the clones were used only for heart transplants for the El Patron so he could keep on living. El Patron wanted to live long because when he was little he had seven brothers and sisters who died young and El Patron believed that he deserved those lives. But just when the operation was about to get started El Patron died. The people in the mansion said that Matt was no longer useful so Tam Lin put him in Aztlan. At Aztlan he made new friends who helps him go and find Maria who also is in Aztlan. One of his friends named Chacho got hurt and went to the hospital at the Convent of Santa Clara where Maria was staying. Matt finds Maria and her mother Ezperanza in the hospital wing of the Convent. Ezperanza told Matt that Opium is under the state of lockdown which means that nothing can get in and nothing can get out of the country except for some of the hovercrafts which the pilots have to be cleared. No ship could enter opium except for El Patrons. So since El Patron died Matt had the same fingerprints and DNA as him so he had to be screened. Ezperanza also tells Matt that because El Patron died he is the new emperor of Opium and he is now the new El Patron. Matt accomplished his mission and he vowed to be a better ruler than El Patron with the help of all his friends.
8/25/03
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