The Lord of Opium by Nancy FarmerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
After reading and loving The House of the Scorpion about ten years ago, I was excited to see a sequel and picked it up immediately.
A lot has changed in ten years, both in terms of my reading tastes and in caring about the characters and plot of this story. Matt, who I remember as an inquisitive and daring underdog, is very flat in Lord of Opium. Meanwhile, Maria is barely even in the story.
What made HotS work was Matt's situation. Now that he is in a position of power, he is quite boring. He spends the majority of the book doing menial things and having very little personal struggle, despite the fact that the world is supposedly at war.
The minor characters were the saving graces, in my opinion. Mirasol seas an interesting plotline, Cienfuegos was a great antihero, and Listen was my absolute favorite.
I have to agree with other reviews and say that NOTHING happens in this book. Nancy Farmer is a great writer, but it's only worth reading if you really loved the original.
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