Who Is The Protagonist In The House Of The Scorpion

“The House of the Scorpion” by Nancy Farmer is a beautifully crafted story about society and acceptance.
The story takes place in the future in Opium- a new country made by drug farmers in between Atzlán (What used to be called Mexico) and the United States.
It takes place from the perspective of Matt: a young boy- well, not quite. He is a clone of “El Patrón”, a powerful drug lord and the ruler of Atzlán. Matt is taken care of throughout the story by “Tam Lin”: his bodyguard of sort, and Celia: his general caretaker and practically is “mother” Matt himself is very smart, and talented, but he is still young.
At the very beginning of the story, Matt is six years old, and Celia is introduced. They live together in a small house in the poppy fields. Matt is quickly

discovered and taken to the “big house”: El Patrón’s mansion .

There, Matt is discriminated against simply because he is a clone, even though he has clear talent. He also meets a young girl- María, who he becomes immediate friends with despite Matt being a clone because of her empathy. After being treated like an animal for almost half a year, Matt is washed up finally, and given an education. Here he meets Tam Lin- El Patrón’s scottish bodyguard, and now his own. He is Matt’s mentor. It is revealed that there are eejits- basically zombies working for El Patrón, and the situation with Matt becomes more sinister. He is accused of killing María’s dog, but he runs away to a specific spot that Tam Lin and he had visited for a while. There, Tam Lin left a few supplies- which are more important later. When Matt comes home, it is revealed that all of his nourishment and protection from El Patrón was for one reason. Matt is simply spare parts. Luckily, before he can be dissected, Celia tells El Patrón that she poisoned Matt, and that his heart is unusable. El Patrón dies the next day, and Matt and María try to escape. Tam Lin

is given the task of Turning Matt into an eejit, but instead gives him a chance to escape to Atzlán. Matt succeeds, using the supplies given to him by the same person, and makes it to an orphanage in Atzlán, and then to where María was sent off to earlier with her mother. They send Matt back to destroy the Opium empire- and when he makes it home, he finds that every single family member of El Patrón was poisoned so they could not take his fortune- including Tam Lin, but not Celia. He resolves to end the empire that his “father” created- which creates a cliffhanger and lead for the next book “The lord of Opium”.
Overall- the book was very good. It was written in a way that I certainly can appreciate, and the characters are very real and convincing. It was heart wrenching, heartwarming, and completely surprising at all the right times, while not being paced too fast. The only real change I could really say is necessary about the book is of course that Tam Lin doesn’t die at the end, considering he’s the best character, but c’est la vie. Even though the only real character dies, I still plan on giving this to someone looking for a good read- as that’s exactly what this is.