The Ballad of Songbirds
and Snakes
Suzanne Collins
5/5
I am not at all surprised by how much I enjoyed Suzanne Collins’ novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Collins has a very particular flare for imagination and writing that drags you in and makes you forget that you’re reading. The story is immersive, and ties in enough elements of the original series to make you feel like you’ve returned to Panem without feeling like she ripped off her own story for the money that additions to popular series can bring to an author.
As anyone who has done any research knows, this book centers on the 10th annual Hunger Games and the main character is none other than the reviled President Coriolanus Snow, from the original series. In The Ballad though, Snow is an 18 year old student who has been roped into being a mentor for the girl tribute from District 12 while he is completing his final year at the Academy. This is a major detour from being a story written from the perspective of one of the Tributes, mainly, Katniss Everdeen. It also shows a stark change from the lavish, country-wide spectacle that the Hunger Games have become by the time Katniss is a Tribute in the 75th hunger games. In The Ballad, the arena is an old, untended sports arena, gifts for the Tributes during game play are a new concept, and winners from previous games were not afforded the same luxuries that winners now receive. We quickly discover that Snow actually had a hand in the increasing lavishness of the Hunger Games in subsequent years to the 10th annual Games he is involved in. Unfortunately, due to his actions with his Tribute, Lucy Grey, Snow finds himself in Peacekeeper training in District 12 where he continues his relationship with his Tribute.
Overall, I found the book wildly entertaining. It was odd to read, however, knowing that Snow would eventually become President of Panem. It made the questionable decisions he made in both the Games, and as a Peacekeeper less high stakes because you have to know it would work out in the end. This posed a different fun game for my brain to play while I was reading though, because I found myself consumed with trying to figure out how on Earth he would get out of it without derailing his political future. Suffice to say, Snow is smart, and Snow is lucky. Snow always lands on top.
When I put down the book not more than fifteen minutes ago, I felt annoyed at the end of his time in District Twelve. His actions during the fallout with Lucy Grey seemed such a departure from his personality in the rest of the book. It felt like a very abrupt and sudden change in the character that I actually had a moment where I needed to pause and shake my head. It made no sense to me, at the time I was reading it. I started rolling around his actions from earlier in the book. His aspirations, the repeated references to his ability to manipulate people, he watches people, his political ambitions, what he did with the jabberjay and the resulting consequences for Sejanus, his willingness to do anything to protect himself, his family, and their reputation.... Everything just snapped into place while I was considering his actions. Of course, that was how his time in District Twelve would end. It was the only way. And this is where Collins really, truly shines. Snow went from a student I was rooting for throughout so much of the book, to revealing who he would become in the last fifty pages and the transition was incredible, subtle, and a thing of true beauty. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a character change so dramatically, and yet so subtly in one book. And the trick here is that the character never really changed. Snow is who he was always going to be but you had no idea until you had all of the pieces to puzzle together.
Collins is brilliant and I would not be upset if this book became a trilogy following the career of Coriolanus Snow because there is so much to discover in his brilliant mind.
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