From the unique combination of the timelessness of an old and seemingly forgotten world deftly mixed with the futuristic reality of a brave new world comes a chilling tale of ethics and mortality that is thought provoking and macabre, and yet strangly fascinating...Is this the way of the future? Matt is six years old when he discovers that he is different from other children, from other people. To most people Matt isn't a boy, but a beast, dirty and disgusting. But to El Patron, lord of a country called Opium, Matt is the guarantee of eternal life. El Patron loves Matt as he loves himself - for Matt is himself. They share the same DNA. As Matt struggles to understand his existence and what that existence trully means, he is threatened by a host of sinister and manipulating characters, from El Patron's power-hungry family to the brain-deadened eejits and mindless slaves that toil Opium's poppy fields. Surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards, Matt longs for escape. But even escape is no guarantee of freedom because Matt is marked but his difference in ways that he doesn't even suspect.
How had I not heard of this book before a few months ago? It seems as though everyone I speak to has already read it, and yet it has been avoiding my radar for the past few years. What?!
The House of the Scorpion is a great read. It's about love and family, and how those two things make us human. It's about rising up, and empowerment, and fighting your so-called destiny. I love all of those things, so I knew as soon as I picked this book up that this would be one for me. Add to that a writing style that reminds me of Neal Shusterman's Unwind, and we have a winner.
