House of the Scorpion entry one

the House of the Scorpion is a very interesting book with lots of plot twists, and many great characters. Briefly I will go into the characters and try to explain some of their quirks and traits. I will start off with our main character Matteo Alacran, otherwise known as the dirty clone. Matteo is a clone of El Patron a ruthless drug dealer and the leader of a country called opium which lies between the US and Mexico. The country of opium was built for growing and producing drugs. By law clones are injected when they are born, when injected there intelligence is blunted( this is a terrible thing to do to a living creature!), they become to stupid to do any tasks on their own. Matt was not injected at birth and this makes him special, he is smarter than every clone in existence. But he is still hated because he is a clone. Maria is matts best friend she does not hate him because he is a clone, she almost sees Matt as an equal, they have grown very close throughout their childhood. Tam Lin is Matts Scottish bodyguard,  and mentor in everything having to do with nature. Finally there is Celia, she is like the mother Matt never really had, and she loves him with all of her heart. The setting is at the Alacran estate and the surrounding area, the estate is beautiful, it does a good job of showing off all of El Patrons power. The surrounding area of the estate is a dry, dry , desert. This makes sense because Opium was once part of Mexico. The conflict of the story is that Matt is a clone, and everyone hates him, he is trying to get past this, and is having a very hard time. He has made some friends along the way but will never be truly excepted. This book is starting to grow on me, I did not like it at first. But the wonderful cast of characters kind of sucked me in! This book reminds me of the matrix in a way, like how Neo live his life not knowing what was going on, then he finally woke up, Matt would have been stupid his entire life, if he was not spared at birth. The Matrix and the House of the Scorpion both have a amazing cast of characters. I really wonder what is going to happen to Matt at the end of the book, I hope he doesn't end up like Neo!