21 Total

So it's been a week... I've finished 3 books! The first book I finished was House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. It was okay. Not spectacular; not horrible; just okay. In the beginning, it was a good, easy read. The characters, especially the main character, are strong and relatable. The book takes place in the future, and the main character, Matt, is the clone of an all-powerful drug lord. The general public sees Matt as an animal, but El Patron (the drug lord from whom he was cloned) makes sure that he's educated. Matt basically lives a sheltered life of luxury on El Patron's ranch until El Patron's heart begins to fail. Matt learns that he's going to be killed so that El Patron can have a heart, but Celia (his caretaker and El Patron's cook) and Tam Lin (El Patron's body guard and Matt's surrogate father-figure) have been giving Matt arsenic so that he can live (El Patron can't use him for parts that way). Tam Lin helps Matt escape... Then the story lost me. Matt goes off into Aztlan (what was formerly Mexico) and has to work in a communist society... He meets boys his own age... The end of the story just wasn't as good as the beginning. It kind of ruined the whole book for me because it didn't seem to fit with the story overall. The ending was especially annoying, because it was a vague "happily ever after," but there were several problems left.

I'd recommend House of the Scorpion to middle schoolers who are into Science Fiction.

I realized that I said I was done with the Anne of Green Gables books... Well, I wasn't. I ended up reading the final two in the series Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside. I started Rainbow Valley because I couldn't fall asleep to clone adventures, and then I couldn't stop reading them. If you've never read the Anne of Green Gables series, you should. They're timeless.

I'm debating whether to start The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or In the Woods by Tana French.