From Adiek84's blog:
> She entered the chat a bit tired.So the next book is Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper. I will post an update here when there are more details.
> Overall a good response from us, after being asked how did we like the book.
> Favourite characters ranged from Maria to Tam Lin
> Discussed the death of Tam Lin – interesting repsonses to the questions posed: “What if he didn’t drink the poison and mentored Matt? Did Tam Lin have a fear that Tam Lin would become like El Patron if he lived?”
> Anna agrees with Adiek84 with her statement that Matt had El Patron like emotions. She kept wondering if Matt would have ended up being like El Patron. Nature vs Nurture.
> The way it ends is that El Patron dies, and Matt becomes El Patron. The clone has become the original.
> Anna agrees with Kameiko, that Matt has a lot to learn
> Anna indirectly agrees with missmushrooms’ statement about Maria’s morality to Matt so the conversation diverts to the treatment of clones and eejits
> Everybody got kicked out of the chat due to server problems.
> Back in and the topic is the application of morality of using genetically modification by using the example of the debate genetically modifying crops in the US.
> We gave Anna too much love and crashed the chat. Again. But we’re soon back again, and back to question being asked.
> There will always be people like El Patron who use everything for personal gain – which is why regulation is important. But not too much or we don’t advance.
> She asks us an important question: “So would you think it would be ethically okay to clone individual organs, but not the body and not the brain?” BUT. “What if it’s to save a life of an evil person?”
> Anna laughs at missmushrooms and agrees that philosophy does rock.
> Anna poses yet another moral question, in saving El Patron’s life thousands of lives would be ruined – all of the people who had tried to escape his regime were turned into his slaves.
> Anna agrees with kameiko that the life outside, in the shrimp factory, was no better than in El Patron’s kingdom. Which is worse because the kids were slaves.
> One could argue “at least the zombies wouldn’t know what is happening”.
> Anna agrees with tenshiie, with her question “HOW do you know that?” – also agreeing with adiek84 that shrimp slaves have a better chance at escaping then zombie slaves.
> And the way the book ends it’s up to Matt to determine the fat of the zombies
> She touches on the sequel briefly, which is out in November. Her book doesn't end with ice cream and pancakes – ending hasn’t been finalised She gives us a spoiler and saying that it is not a happy ending. End of conversation about her book.
> We then contemplate Esperanza’s plan – adding she has a lot of plans and is power hungry.
> Anna wished she wrote this book – “I’d be a genius!”
> Topic diverts to Maria’s mother Esperanza, and what her character is like, including attitudes toward Matt and the ruling of Opium.
> Does DNA influence your character? She thinks so, as she used her children as examples and they have very distinct personalities. Concluding that DNA and environment as an equal part working together, determines a person.
> Disagreeing is good. It what makes a discussion interesting and that’s what this chat is about.
> Reading books should make you make you question things, and this book is great for that.
> We go off topic again, for a while, and we’re back on talking about the treatment of Matt was he born compared to how he was treated like when he was older. She also notes how we can apply this in real life, such as colour of skin, sexuality, male or female.
> Nancy Farmer makes us, the reader, empathise with Matt and makes us question to how we would treat him in real life.
> Despite Brave New World having two votes (we said we can do this as a side project if we wanted) the next book is Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper as it really was an eye opener for her and changed the way it made her think – realistic fiction.
> She has to go and said we were awesome.
