In the country of Opium in a strip of poppy fields somewhere between the United States and what used to be Mexico lies a small house. In this house lives a boy named Matt who isn't exactly what you would consider normal. He is a clone of El Patron. His cells were split and divided in a petri dish later to be put in a cow, which he was born from. He considers himself normal, but thats far from what the rest of the world thinks of him. He is considered a Monster, a filthy animal and a disgrace. He is worthless to everyone but his creator, El Patron. His life is threatened by many characters simply because of the way he was conceived, will he make it through?
This book was truly amazing. The plot was unlike anything I have heard about. Farmers thought process was unbelievable. Though the book started off extremely slow and I was unable to connect with the book at all but when I got deeper in, every scene seemed to pull me in, loosing track of time and unable to put the book down.
One of the things that I didn't enjoy was the amount of characters that were in the book. I would often have to go back and read chapters again because I wouldn't be able to remember where and who this character was. That was frustrating for me because I would be so into the book and then a new character would come into play and it would get complicated. The book would have been much more powerful if there were less characters because that would have allowed her to go deeper into their specific personalities although she did cover them quite well.
I just feel like after a while, the characters were left hanging such as Tom. When Matt was reunited with Maria in the end of the book, Tom was completely out of the story. Was he alive? Was he with Maria? He totally disappeared from the book, which was a huge shock to me that Farmer would pull that out of the book. One last thing that I felt she left out of the book was the relationship between Matt and Maria in the end. Once they had met, she left them off as friends which seemed odd to me. After all of Farmer leading us on that Matt was in love with Maria, she never really informed us if they ever fell in love, or got married. It was a big chunk missing out of the story to me.
This book was outstanding, the twists and turns of the book were always a shock. Farmer was constantly putting hints of foreshadowing which kept me engaged in the book, and like I had said before, unable to put the book down. Overall, It was a really interesting read, I will be sure to recommend to my friends.
This book was truly amazing. The plot was unlike anything I have heard about. Farmers thought process was unbelievable. Though the book started off extremely slow and I was unable to connect with the book at all but when I got deeper in, every scene seemed to pull me in, loosing track of time and unable to put the book down.
One of the things that I didn't enjoy was the amount of characters that were in the book. I would often have to go back and read chapters again because I wouldn't be able to remember where and who this character was. That was frustrating for me because I would be so into the book and then a new character would come into play and it would get complicated. The book would have been much more powerful if there were less characters because that would have allowed her to go deeper into their specific personalities although she did cover them quite well.
I just feel like after a while, the characters were left hanging such as Tom. When Matt was reunited with Maria in the end of the book, Tom was completely out of the story. Was he alive? Was he with Maria? He totally disappeared from the book, which was a huge shock to me that Farmer would pull that out of the book. One last thing that I felt she left out of the book was the relationship between Matt and Maria in the end. Once they had met, she left them off as friends which seemed odd to me. After all of Farmer leading us on that Matt was in love with Maria, she never really informed us if they ever fell in love, or got married. It was a big chunk missing out of the story to me.
This book was outstanding, the twists and turns of the book were always a shock. Farmer was constantly putting hints of foreshadowing which kept me engaged in the book, and like I had said before, unable to put the book down. Overall, It was a really interesting read, I will be sure to recommend to my friends.
Ashika, thank you for your specific and considered reflections on the novel. I was also shocked that we never got to know more about Tom, and that Matt and Maria never connected romantically at the end. Do you think that Farmer was planning on making a sequel? Or just ran out of time and pages? Hmmm.....
ReplyDeleteAlso, why do you think that Farmer chose to include so many characters? She must have realized that there were a lot when she included the character list at the beginning, but could there have been a larger purpose?
Great job :)