House of the Scorpion: Final Review

The House of the Scorpion was a very eye-opening book, and I think that it explained that we still are discriminating people, and if we don't put a stop to it, then it will continue into the future. We should learn to put aside our differences and figure out a way to bring peace to our collapsing world. The House of the Scorpion was a book about a young clone named Matteo (Matt) Alacran who is raised by a drug lord, and struggles to be treated equally among others. The story is set in a little strip of land named Opium, a drug country that borders the US and Mexico. The country is controlled by a powerful drug lord, it acts as border control for the two countries and in return is allowed to produce and distribute drugs all over the world, except to the US and Mexico. Matt the clone of El Patron (powerful drug lord) is discriminated, looked down upon and treated like an animal. Matt strives for excellence, academically so that he prove that he is just as intelligent as any other human being. I think that the book was very well written, and I really enjoyed it. The book U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and was named a Newbery Honour Book. It has received many other honours. This book I think really was aimed toward the young adult audience, and I think that it did a really good job at empowering them and helping them understand the issues in today's world. This book is a science fiction book and is set in the future, and so you might also like to read, City of Ember or the Giver if you have not read them already. Overall, a very interesting and fun book to read. I would give this book a rating of 4/5.

House of the Scorpion: Yay, or Nay?

I honestly wasn't interested in reading HOS, but after I got into it, it was pretty good. I think that the worst part of the book was the ending. One of the biggest pet peeves of mine is a book or movie that ends really badly. It seemed like Farmer was in a hurry and rushed the ending. The beginning of the book was also a bit slow. Once you got into the middle of the book, it was quite drawing and made you want to read more. If I could improve this book I would put more action into it. Throughout the book it is more quite and there is no real conflict, making it somewhat boring at times. Other than the lack of action, and the odd boring spot. I think that the book was well written with a strong story line, and I would recommend this book to many of my friends!

[CLEVER TITLE FOR REVIEW OF BOOK]

This is a book about a boy, Matteo Alacrán, who finds out he is the clone of the real Matteo Alacrán, and learns that he has an entire family; or at least he is a clone of someone who does. This happens only after he escapes his cabin, where he lived the first at least 7 years of his life, for the first time ever, but he also finds that clones are loathed by everyone and not thought of as human, or as having a soul. María was the only one who ever really appreciated him for who he was. This book was written well: everything was described well without wasting space on the pages. The plot of this story was good and had a lot of twists, but it could have still been improved in some ways, for example Farmer could have gone into more detail about what happens at the end, and even though her ending worked OK, it would have been better to actually include some of his adult life. Another thing in this book that bothered me was how many characters there were that were not explained enough except for a sentence about them before the first chapter. This made the entire book very confusing and I found myself looking back to the page of characters constantly to find who Farmer was talking about. The problem was not having the character page there, it was the fact that the character page actually needed to be there to understand the story. This story was not a very fast paced one, as most of the time Matt was in the Big House either learning to play the piano or studying hard to prove to everyone that a clone is just as capable of doing anything as everyone else. The story's pace seemed to speed up nearing the end of the novel, although still not quite as fast as action and adventure novels. Overall this was a pretty good book and was written OK, but it was not the type of book I would usually read, so I would give it a 7/10 if I had to rate this novel.

Matt vs Vincent

People all over the globe are discriminated because of their gender, ethnicity, religion and political views. They face discrimination every single day; they are persecuted, murdered, imprisoned and tortured. That is the world that we live in now. What will it be like when genetics are added to that list? Matt was genetically altered and placed in a cow. Vincent on the other hand was born naturally. They were both born into completely opposite lives. Vincent lives in a world where only people who are genetically modified to be perfect, ever succeed in life, he was the obsolete form of man. Matt lives in a world where clones are murdered and harvested for their organs, so their owners can live longer. To opposite worlds but they are so similar in the circumstances that they must face. They have the same feelings; they feel alone, miserable, put down by others who say they will never succeed. But they strive for excellence, they reach for success, and along the way meet the few people whom look at them as equal. They lose that sense of loneliness, and see that there is always hope. They start to see that are people in this world who accept you for who you are, and not for what others think of you. They were both discriminated because of there genetic structure, they were treated like a lower class because of the way they were brought into this world, and they were considered useless. I think that the book and the movie both explain that if we do not do anything about discrimination, if we ignore it, that it will continue to be a problem in our world for generations to come. I feel that both the book and the movie want you to make a difference, to change the world or even just the people around you and will lead to the inspiration of others to do what is right and with the help of your friends and family you can make change in your community, city, or even the world.

Gattaca: Who's real?

Right away I noticed that in a way the movie Gattaca, and the book House of the Scorpions are almost opposite, but in other ways, they are similar. In the world of Gattaca you must be genetically modified to be considered "desirable". While as in HoS you must be "natural" to be considered desirable. Vincent and Matt took two similar paths. Neither of them was openly able to brandish their identity. Even through Matt and Vincent were not able to show their true selves, they both tried their harder to exceed all expectations. Matt tried his best in school and showed his knowledge to everyone in the big house. Vincent showed his amazing skills in swimming and proved to everyone that he was equal to them, even if they didn't know his true identity. These two opposites proved to everyone around them that they are just as able as modified people in Vincent's case, or "natural people" in Matts case. These two people are in ways complete opposites, but in other ways, they can completely relate to each other. They are both standouts, but they prove that they are just as worthy as anyone else in the book/movie. The two completely opposite circumstances that these are placed in are so strangely similar. I think that if Matt and Vincent met in real life they would grow to be quite close, just because their experiences of being outcasts, but proving to everyone they can be just as worthy, and be who they want to be, natural, or altered. I believe that in the future of Gattaca, Vincent will always be known as Jerome. I'm not quite sure what would happen to Matt though. Because he is in a way a "mini" El Patrón, so I'm not sure if he will become like the "old" El Patrón or not. I don't think that Matt will change as a person, so I think in the future of both the movie Gattaca, and House of the Scorpion I think that Matt and Vincent's personalities will stay the same as they were during the book and/or movie. I think that towards the end both Matt and Vincent might change the world; because Vincent was one of the first men to travel to Saturn's moon Titan, while Matt took control of a drug country, and can do with it what he wants, giving them both the power to alter the world, in these two separate, but amazingly powerful stories. 

Gattaca's Vincent vs Scorpion's Matt

        The movie Gattica and the House of the Scorpion are very similar in some ways, yet still very different. In Gattica, genetically engineered people are high class citizens and the others are the abominations, whereas in the House of The Scorpion, the clones, who are grown in a lab, are the creatures that no one likes or trusts, and the naturally born people are superior to them. Throughout the book, Matt was trying to prove to everyone that clones can be just as good at everything as any other person by trying really hard in school, learning to play the piano, etc, and Vincent does the same, except that no one knows that he is who he is. These characters are constantly comparing themselves to the people around them to show themselves what they can accomplish even without being perfect, which motivates them even more to the point where they are much better than many people at what they do. I can only assume what Matt did when he grew up, and the clues say that he would be very successful wherever he chose to go just to show himself and others that he can do just as well as, or better than, anyone else. On the other hand in Gattica we can see Vincent rising through the ranks at Gattica and eventually going into space like he wanted to since he was little, and he had finally beaten his genetically engineered brother in one of the swimming competitions they always had to see who was braver, because he constantly persevered and kept going until after he couldn't stop.

        Opium, where Matt was "harvested" and grew up, is in the future, just as Gattica was, but these are two completely different futures. In Matt's future, Opium is a country created from drug lords needing more space to grow their opium, and there are clones (most with their minds destroyed) being used as organ donors because the organs of someones clone are almost identical to the original person's own organs. This effects Matt because of the way the other clones act, everyone hates Matt, and in the end he turns out to be just another organ donor. In Vincent's future, this has not happened (as far as I can tell) but people are still being grown in petri dishes. These people are then built with the right DNA to keep them from being too violent, make sure they are physically well built, and keep birth defects from appearing. Vincent is, because of this, Vincent is often excluded and feels that he is inferior to others because everyone around him has the most perfect genes and perfect everything, where he is just a regular person. Matt is different in this case than Vincent, because he actually has the exact same genes as someone else, but people just don't like him because he wasn't born the regular way, he was taken from specific DNA from El Patrón and grown in a cow. So in the end, these two characters are completely different genetically, but are so similar only because of the completely different social circumstances and perspectives of society.

Matteo Alacrán: His Journey

         Throughout this novel, Matt has had his ups and downs. The pain he had endured, has been more than imaginable, but he fought through it, with courage, and bravery. Matt has thought for himself as if he were a grown adult, and he has thought of ways to overcome or avoid his problems. Most people would crumble at the strain of knowing what Matt knows. Matt learns more and more about himself, and his clone "brother". Matt changes as a person as he struggles through his experiences. His personality changes drastically throughout the book. One thing that does not change about Matt is his attitude towards others. For a while he becomes spoiled, and almost snarky towards people like María. But his attitude takes a change for the better, and he becomes a loving and caring person that he always was, and always seems to be.