Book Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Read from: June 29, 2020 Till: July 19, 2020

Genre: YA Dystopian, Sci-fi and Fantasy 

Sub-Genre: Dystopian, Sci-fi and Fantasy

Summary:

The prequel to the Hunger Games Trilogy, this book follows the future President of Panem, Coriolanus Snow, as he’s about to graduate from school. He mentors a contender in the tenth annual Hunger Games. Although, he’s stuck with the girl from District 12, she turns out to be a singer with a flair for theatrics. As they survive the road to the Games, they have to weigh the choices and options. Following Coriolanus, this book sees him from the mentor assignment, through the tenth annual Hunger Games, and a summer serving with the Peacekeepers.

Review:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was a solid prequel to the original trilogy. It followed the villain from the original story and shared his story in a way which explains how a scared kid from the Capital became a powerful dictator. It was interesting to see how he fell in love with the girl from District 12, even ready to run away with her. I loved how it used lyrics to tell the story and about the characters. Cleverly it foreshadowed the end of their story and made me want a better ending for them. This book is very much a romantic tragedy.

Notes: (Spoilers ahead)

Snow’s lover wrote The Hanging Tree which is a song that really made him mad in the original trilogy. The Mockingjay’s were used as a for shadowing of his undoing. Readers learn where his love of roses came from (his mother) and how he started using poison on his victims.

View The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes on Good Reads.

Review written in 2020. Edited in 2024.

Author's Note: Welcome back to another review! These first two reviews (Click to read the Not If I Save You First book review) are from a book journal that I've kept since 2020. Stay tuned for more! Side note: Since these were written in a book journal, they do contain spoilers. I've attempted to blue out the spoilers, click and drag your mouse curser over the text to reveal the spoilers, or simply read around it to skip the spoilers.