The Stats
📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚
BOOK: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
AUTHOR: Suzanne Collins
@suzannecollins
Publisher: Scholastic Press @scholasticinc
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Published: May 19th 2020
Review
Hey, you remember when that hungry girl Katniss went into a little arena and killed a bunch of other kids except one of her two boyfriends and became a superstar? Then had to do it again? Then became an outlaw revolutionary? Well, before she ever stuck three fingers in the air, there was Coriolanus Snow. Yeah, he’s president of Panem when she shows up on the scene, but he wasn’t born to the office.
A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes happens while he was a schoolboy, and the Hunger Games are new. Back then, mentors for the tributes weren’t from their same district. Instead, they were chosen from the school class ready to go into the academy. The winning tribute will also win their mentor a guaranteed spot in the next level. And Snow needs this. His family has been down on their luck, despite starting out as rich muckity mucks. So, he gets the girl tribute from District 12, and he’s all sorts of mad about it… until she takes a moment at the reaping to try and assassinate the mayor’s daughter. He can work with this.
Before we get into this, I want to bring up one of my minor gripes about the series. The choice of Snow during Catching Fire to force Katniss back into the games. It felt like he was just doing it to spite her, and not behaving rationally. It turned a neutralized threat into a very active, very angry threat, and that was his choice. I want you to remember that choice because this book explains it, and explains it well. This book fixes that plot hole by giving us a glimpse into Snow’s twisted little white privilege mind.
Do you like stories where we watch the backstory of a villain, and you understand they just have a pile of hurt underneath? Tough cookies. Like prequels where good people transform into the vile nemesis they become. Look elsewhere. Yes, Snow is the protagonist of this book, but he’s not a nice, kind, or good person. He’s selfish, sneaky, and conniving. And that never changes.
This also does a good job of world-building. We get to understand the origins of the Hunger Games, the culture of District 12 and the Capitol. I don’t remember if it was said anywhere in the previous books, but it is confirmed here that Panem is an alternate North America (or is it the future?).
I enjoyed the book, and the voice actor did an excellent job of bringing out Snow’s snide thought process.
You can see more in my video review:
*****
“People aren’t so bad, really,” she said. “It’s what the world does to them.”
— Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0.5))
Summary
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.