Audiobook Review – The House of Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Dystopia
Length: 10hrs 43 minutes
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release Date: October 21, 2008
ISBN: 978-0743572460
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the House of Scorpion series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

I had heard great things about this book and had been wanting to read it for some time. This is a well done science fiction/dystopian novel that touches on a lot of social and political issues such as cloning, slavery, human rights, drug trade, and immortality. I had a bit of trouble engaging with the characters, but it was a fascinating story. A follow up to this book, Lord of Opium, was published in September 2013.

Matteo Alacran is a clone harvested from the DNA of the most powerful drug lord in the world, El Patron. He is given the best education and the best living accommodations. Despite this he is forced to continually face the fact that he is not human, he is a clone. In El Patron’s household being a clone makes him something to be feared and scorned. He is there at El Patron’s whim and there to ensure El Patron’s survival. Can he ever escape this life and have one of his own?

I know there’s been a lot of buzz around this book and it does have some interesting elements and is a well done dystopian book. I think I’ve just read too many dystopian novels over the last couple years to get super excited about it.

Matteo is brought up like a privileged young man, except he has no peers and is continually scorned and ridiculed for his status as a clone. Most clones have their minds destroyed at birth, they are meant as vessels to harvest organs from…not people. This makes Matteo’s existence an anomaly. Because of the way Matteo is brought up he is naive, ignorant, and childishly cruel at turns.

Yet, Matteo/Matt is smart, very smart. In addition to that the cook Celia, who basically raises him, is a kind woman who loves him. In his preteens he inherits one of El Patron’s bodyguards, Tam Lin. Tam Lin treats Matt like just another kid and takes him on adventures, as well as being stern with him when he is wrong. These two characters help to temper Matt’s cruelty and shape him into a more conscientious young man.

Additionally Matt meets Maria at a young age. Maria is incredibly tender-hearted and at first treat Matt like the family pet. That is until she grows to love him, despite of how taboo it is to love a clone. Maria ends up being another driving force in Matt’s live.

The nearly immortal El Patron looms over the story. The people who he decides are his never leave his domain, his vast expanse of wealth and power mean that he has lived well beyond his natural years. He wants to be immortal, he doesn’t trust anyone with his wealth or with his domain. He is an exceedingly complex and cruel character.

All the above being said you can see there are a lot of issues here. What makes a human, human? How would a clone be different from a human? How do drugs and power destroy people? What would happen if people lived well beyond their years; how would it affect them physically and mentally? This book is unique for the sheer number of controversial issues it comes in touch with.

Despite the fact that this is an interesting and thought-provoking story I didn’t really enjoy it a ton. I really never engaged with the characters all that well. Matt came off as too naive and too cruel. Maria came off as too weepy and weak.

Given the context there is a lot of cruelty in this book, but it is never unnecessarily gory or over-the-top. People are beaten and tortured though, there are a lot of disturbing things that happen as well.

Overall this is a good book to read to expose middle grade and young adult readers to a lot of concepts around cloning and slavery. They are concepts that are probably somewhat foreign to younger readers and this book explores them in an interesting way that has an engaging story to go with it. I personally did not enjoy the book a ton and won’t read any future ones in the series. I had trouble engaging with the characters and just felt like I have read many other dystopian books with similar story elements.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
– 150+ Reading Challenge
– TBR Pile Reading Challenge