The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
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.
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Heads up, this review will NOT contain spoilers for this specific book, however, it WILL contain spoilers for the original series so if you’ve never read or watched The Hunger Games (do you live under a rock?) then be warned, spoilers ahead.
I put off reading this book for far too long. I love The Hunger Games. I devoured that series so fast when I was a kid and hearing there was a prequel when I was well into adulthood was like the best surprise… until I found out it was from Snow’s POV. I don’t need to read a book from the villain’s perspective when the villain is so similar to politicians we have around today. I read to escape that. However, this book was surprisingly enjoyable, even from the POV of a character that I hated.
We start off after the Games already exist, after the war has already ended, and after the Capitol has already won. Coriolanus is a young teenage student who is gearing up to become a mentor in the 10th annual Hunger Games. He is a sympathetic character to start off with, however, those reading that know who he becomes can see all the little moments where his ruthlessness and selfishness shine through. Remember, as bad as he had it, some had it worse and didn’t do the atrocious things he did to get ahead. I really liked his meagre/humble beginnings. It shows why he’s just so cutthroat in the future when he’s an old man. He literally had to claw his way to the top, stomping on others to get ahead in a community that encouraged that behaviour. And this being right after a traumatic war that embitters his feelings towards the districts from a very young age. Even though he seems to have humanity throughout this book, there are moments where regret bubbles up and we see him able to stomp it out like a pesky bug and those are the little snippets into the REAL Coriolanus Snow that made this book so fascinating to read. He was never really good, but he didn’t start out evil. Goes to show how upbringing and role models impact how a person can turn out. I loved that exploration into nature vs nurture in parallel to how Katniss ends up in the original series.
One thing that really sold me on this book was the history of The Games. Seeing how barbaric they were right at the start before it turned into this big entertainment industry was crazy to see. And seeing all these little seeds of ideas on how to make the games better crop up throughout Coriolanus’ story was horrifying and fascinating at the same time. They’re really originally fashioned after Ancient Roman/Colosseum type “sacrifices” and end up turning into this Survivor-like game show by the time we get to “present-day” Panem. I also really enjoyed learning the small connectors that makes Snow’s special interest in District 12 more understandable. His tribute was from District 12 so right from the beginning, there’s a connection there and I think is one of the sole reasons he becomes so involved in Katniss. If it weren’t for his threats or throwing her back into the arena for the Quarter Quell, I don’t think that rebellion would have happened. He was his own downfall and it all stems back to his first time mentoring a tribute for The Games. Everything came full circle when you read this book. It helped me understand the original series even better and now I can’t wait to do a reread of The Hunger Games and catch anything I missed.
I did have a few holdbacks on absolutely loving this book. The pacing was extremely slow. This book is longer than each of the other books in The Hunger Games trilogy yet very little happens. As much as I came to appreciate getting to know Snow and his motivations a little better, reading that much content from his self-involved/narcissistic point of view made it a very hard read to pick up time and again. I also found Lucy Gray to be very un-relatable. I’m not sure if this is because we’re seeing her through Snow’s eyes but she felt very naive and un-interesting to me so seeing her representing 12 and all it stands for was underwhelming. I like learning more about the history of Panem, I just wish we had more action. Whether that’s more focus on The Games (which felt like a very small part of the book) or exploring a bigger time-span of the history of the games with multiple POVs, I feel like there was definitely something that could have been done to make this a more palatable read.
I gave this one 3.5 stars as it was enjoyable, I just think more could have been done with it. I’m also a very character-driven reviewer so reading books from characters I don’t like tend to be harder reads for me. Definitely worth the read though, if you love the world of Panem.