House of the Scorpion Review

Matt lives on a strip of land, called Opium, between Mexico (which is called Aztlan) and the United States. El Patron, also known as Matteo Alacran, rules the state. Matt, he's the clone of El Patron. He has many difficulties through his life living in Opium. He faces never-ending hardship until one day a life-changing event happened in the state Opium.

House of The Scorpion was a twisted weird story. But overall it was a great novel. Nancy Farmer was a great descriptive writer; she really developed the setting and the characters throughout the novel. Two of my favorite characters of all time in the book are Tam Lin and Felicia. I thought that she really hid Felicia's character really well and then after, it was just BOOM! It was an event that changed my thoughts on her, I thought that she was a really wicked person and she was someone that I wanted to know more about. Tam Lin on the other hand, I just thought that his personality was great. He sounded like a really cool guy. Every single character in the book in my opinion, was well written about. They were all very well told about, I think that their personality was showed uniquely. Their actions they made throughout the story really showed everything about them.

The plot at the end was a little bit disappointing though. I thought that after El Patron died, everything was going fine and it was really exciting. But then all of a sudden he just gets back to Opium after meeting Maria's mom in San Luis, and it just ended. I thought that there was going to be this breath-taking ending. After El Patron died, the plot was getting really exciting, so I was a kind of disappointed with the ending. But the overall plot was just amazing. I really like the way it was told because it really sounded like it was real. Obviously it is a fictional story but it was told a very impressive way. I enjoyed the book very much and I'm glad that I read it. 

Overall the book was very good. I thought that the way she wrote was very descriptive and very vivid. I enjoyed the book because it was something that I wouldn't usually read. The book was twisted with many surprises. I would recommend this book to everyone. Of course there are some difficult words that I myself didn't know some. I think that this book would be more preferable for teenagers.

Matt vs. Vincent

“By Persisting in your path, though you forfeit the littler, you gain the great” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Both Matt and Vincent have a dream to achieve and in order for them to achieve but in order to achieve it, they had to loser something. In both societies people have the ideal child/person. In Vincents world, people think that if your not genitically modified then you're not perfect, and Vincent is just a natural baby. So because he's a natural baby it's impossible to reach his dream, which is to go into space. To make his dream possible he decided to take a guy named Jerome Morrow's identity to become the "perfect" child. Vincent basically decided to start a new life by getting rid of his own identity. Matt is similar, in his world he's also the outcast, in his world being a clone is a bad thing. People don't consider clones as humans, they consider them as animals; bad animals. The whole reason why he was created was because he was supposed to give El Patron his heart. Matts dream was to get people to realize that he isn't just a clone, but he has his own heart, soul, and identity inside of himself. But in order for him to reach that goal, he had to lose a lot of people that he loved. That includes Celia, Tam Lin, El Patron, etc.

Both of them had to lose someone/something to reach their dream. In both of their worlds, they lost something but that was to reach something most people would call impossible. They both wanted to surpass what people thought they couldn't do, and guess what happened in the end? They both made the impossible possible.

Independent Post - Overall plot of book

The House of The Scorpion has its good moments and it bad moments. Things that I really enjoyed throughout the book were how detailed Farmer was in describing Matt’s feelings, the setting, and the overall event. Matt’s feelings were always described with adjectives that were helpful in showing how he felt instead of telling. It really drew a picture in your mind on how he looked based on his feelings. One of my favorite characters that Farmer developed was Tam Lin. His overall character really sounds awesome. The things he does throughout the book really are interesting. The way that Farmer developed Tam Lin was something I was really looking forward too while reading the book. She didn’t explain everything about the character all at once, but rather she explained in detail for every moment she exposed something about the character. Tam Lin was mysterious because Farmer showed the personality, past, and expressions of Tam Lin with a slow pace, but every single thing she talked about him was with detail. For example, when she talked about the looks of Tam Lin she really described his hair, his body, his face, etc. These were the things that I really liked about the book.

As for the bad moments about this book was how Farmer really kept a slow pace to get to the plot. She took a really long time just to get too the very suspenseful moment of the book. I know that she had to explain in detail for the climax to really make sense, but I feel that it did drag on for a while throughout the book. Once you get to around chapter 25 that’s when it really gets interesting. But for a couple of the events after chapter 25 she really kept a slow steady pace until she got to the end. The slow pace climbed to the climax in a very suspenseful way, but right when it hit the point where it was getting interesting, the book just ended. I was a little bit disappointed in how she developed that because I was expecting something more for the ending. In the end, I think that overall, The House of The Scorpion was really interesting. At parts it got a little bit boring but at the same time it made me want to continue reading to find out what happens to Matt in the future.

Celia's Story and Boarder Control

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-20113604.html

Alabama just put a new immigration law into effect allowing officials to check the statuses of students in public schools and the police the power to determine if someone is illegally in the country. This law affects those who want a better life from the place they were originally from. Similar to Celia, she wanted to get away from Aztlan because she was poor and life was hard in Aztlan. People who want to get away from their hometown are probably thinking the same way; if they get to another country maybe they can restart and achieve new things. As for Celia, she asked the “Coyote” for help to cross the boarder to achieve a new life, but once the Farm Patrol catches them everything gets hard; similar to the Illegal Immigrants that are living in reality.

Knowing that this law has come to effect, there’s obviously a reason as to why it’s even made. Well, those who illegally immigrate to other countries have made life harder for those who fund for medical services with their taxes. Also, the immigrants want to help their families back in their hometown, so they probably want any job that gives them enough for a living. This benefits businesses that receive cheap labor and don’t have to pay taxes. Moreover, America loses money from the taxes that businesses don’t pay.

For those living in Alabama, it’s obviously going to affect them as well. As I said some examples before, there are obviously there are going to be pro’s and con’s to this law. For example, Farmer Keith Smith needs 20 pickers to cover his 200 acres on his farm. But because of this new law people are scared and ran away. Now this definitely affects him because now he has no one to pick his crops.

I conclude that because of the disadvantage that America gets, they decided that there has to be a law that stops Illegal Immigrants. There are pro’s and con’s to this, but obviously the country is going to make sure that they aren’t losing money but instead gaining money. 

Setting

The setting in The House of The Scorpion is a little bit confusing. I’m not sure why Farmer specifically chose the boarder between the United States and Mexico. Farmer’s choices that she made should have something to do with the story, and I think that the setting is really just to get the story flowing. For example, in the beginning when Matt meets Emilia and Steven for the first time, I think that the setting was to set up the event. The house that Matt was living in was in the middle of nowhere, and I think that it was to keep other people from finding out about him. The setting is becoming clearer throughout the story but it’s starting to unfold very slowly. She sets the time of the story in the future because it says that they are living in a country called Opium, which is between the United States, and what was once Mexico. Like I said, I think that she did this to set up the events in the story. Specifically, when Celia was telling Matt about how she is now El Patron’s. Moreover, she explains more about the setting throughout the story like when Tam Lin took Matt to the oasis. She explained more about the farms, the oasis (in chapter 15 matt goes back to the oasis, so I believe that this is something important) and more. Throughout the story she describes more about the story, in the beginning she unfolds the story about Matt and at the same time, more about his house, the fields around him. I think that as the story unfolds she will continue to tell us more about the setting, similar to how she did in the beginning. 

Foreshadowing

Everything that Nancy Farmer put in the book is there for a reason. What I’m trying to find out why she put it in. A specific reason for her doing could be because she’s trying to hint us something that is going to happen next. In the beginning, Matt meets Steven, Emilia, and Maria. Maria later calls him an “eejit” and I think that farmer was trying to hint us something about that. Later in the book, I realized that when Maria was talking about “eejits” she was really trying to tell us something, trying to hint us something. Also that could be part of why everyone hates clones. In the book, when everyone figured out that Matt was the clone, they all treated him very badly. The way that everyone treats him could also be foreshadowing a major event that is going to happen.  Names like little beast, filthy clone, bad animal, etc. could all be foreshadows that hint about something that could alter on in the story. Along on that note, the thought that Celia is keeping Matt out of the public could be another foreshadow of why people hate Matt so much. The Chupacabras that Celia talks about could also be a major part in helping develop the story and why people hate Matt so much. The Chupacabras could just be something made up by Celia to keep Matt out of the public because of some reason. Later advancing through the book, I think that we’ll be able to find out the real reason why Farmer put in all of these events/characters into the book.