#tbt: House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. 400 p. Atheneum/ Richard Jackson Books, September, 2002.(Own)

#TBT features House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. This sci/fi/ dystopian was published in 2002 and won the National Book Award as well as a Printz Honor and a Newbery Honor. It takes place in the future in Opium, which is a strip of land between Mexico and the U.S., where it is legal to grow Opium. Mateo is the main character. He is a clone of the drug lord, El Patron. He is meant to supply tissue and organs for the aging patriarch as his own fail. Pretty grim stuff. Ms. Farmer published a sequel in 2013 called The Lord of Opium.