“What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed… How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background… stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are.”
Suzanne Collins
I am assuming most, if not all, have read the hunger games, and if not I’ll give a short synopsis:
In the future, North America, now called Panem, is split into 13 different districts, with the Capitol in the middle. The Hunger Games is an annual punishment to those in the districts for daring to rebel against the Capitol, and the way the Capitol keeps the district in check is by hosting The Hunger Games- a fight to the death with two random ‘tributes’ from each district, one female and one male. Katniss Everdeen lives in the 12th district and final district- the 13th district rebelled and was bombed by the capitol in the first rebellion. When Katniss’ younger sister, Prim’s name is called, the only viable solution is for Katniss to volunteer herself.
The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes is about Coriolanus Snow, who is the ruthless president in The Hunger Games trilogy.
65 years earlier, Snow about to graduate from the Academy with nothing other than the waning prestige his family name grants him and his own wit. Snow has only one opportunity to reclaim his honor, receive personal recognition, and achieve his dream to attend the University; to mentor the winning tribute. His plan seems to fall through when he is assigned the runt of the pack- the female tribute from district 12, Lucy Gray, an obvious descaration of his family name. Only to discover that Lucy gray, is so much more than what others see at first glance.
First off, I think that many people don’t like this book because they already know that Snow ends up in the future so they find no need to also read this book, because it adds nothing to the actual Hunger Games trilogy, so some people have found it “boring” because there is no story arc. Another thing that people may not like is that the story mainly exists inside Snow’s own head, so we mainly see his own corrupt point of view.
What I have to say is that all of those points can be justified if you enjoy learning about the villain’s perspective. Learning how the antagonist turned “bad” is interesting to me because we all start out with a clean slate, albeit different surroundings and experiences. I agree that there really isn’t a story arc, but since we already know how Snow turns out, it makes sense that there wouldn’t be an arc. This story is more of Snow slowly realizing what type of person he is through the hard questions that he is faced with. The Nature Vs. Nurture debate has always interested me and so has human nature so this book was good for me.
Something that bothered me personally were the loose threads in the story. I don’t really need to be spoon-fed content but I feel like this story could have been better by tying some of those up. Another thing that I disliked was the rushed ending. When I think back to it, The Hunger Games trilogy also seems to have a rushed ending.
Other small things that I liked were the world building. Throughout the book, we get to see how the modern Hunger Games is impacted by Snow’s direct input. I also like the people surrounding Snow, such as Tigris, and how they impact his worldview. I’ve heard that others didn’t like the cruelty inthis book but I found it to be similar to the first three.
All in all I found this book to be quite interesting and insightful, but I think that there were some things that could be developed better or differently. If you enjoyed this book or didn’t enjoy this book but liked the concept, I HIGHLY recommend Heartless by Marissa Meyer which follows the story of how the Queen of Hearts turns bad. It was such a beautiful book and one of the few books that moved me to tears.
Also for those that were confused by the title (I know I was)- it’s explained in the book!
| Characters | ★★★★☆ |
| Plot | ★★★☆☆ |
| Ending | ★★★☆☆ |
| Storytelling | ★★★★☆ |
| Overall | 3.5 |
