The House of Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Imagine you discover that you are a clone.  Rather than being referred to as a he, you're an it.  At best, people sneer at you, but most likely people are afraid of you and treat you no better than a beast.  People actually ask if you are house trained, and worry that you will bite them like a wolf or a dog.  Your comfortable bed is taken away and you have to sleep on a concrete slab. You have no rights.  You have no hope.  Or do you?  Nancy Farmer's novel brings a number of social, philosophical, and theological issues to the forefront.  Set in a time not too distant in the future, in a land called Opium that sits between the border of the United States and what used to be Mexico, Matt is the clone of El Patron, a drug lord who has ruled the land for more than a century.  The novel has won or been shortlisted for a number of awards, and is one I highly recommend for teens, and it has been added to some middle school curriculum reading lists in my district.  At 400 pages it does get a bit long in places.