The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins is a prequel to the well known original Hunger Games trilogy and is set 64 years before the events of the first novel. This book was published 12 years after the first novel which had many devout Hunger Games enthusiasts ecstatic. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes dives into the backstory of the series’ notorious antagonist Coriolanus Snow, a complex and morally ambiguous character whose journey back and forth between privilege and desperation is both intriguing and thought provoking. This prequel explores the relationship between Snow and his assigned district 12 member Lucy Gray Beard as he mentors her throughout the 10th annual hunger games.
Collins writes the inner workings of Snow’s mind in an extremely unique manner, allowing the reader to sympathize with Snow by revealing his “soft spots” for Lucy Gray Beard. However, the novel gradually builds to unravel the internal dialogue of Snow’s twisted mind which had me on the edge of my seat. Most of the book is written in prose through a 3rd person limited narration and I enjoyed it because of how the narrator displayed the progression of Snow’s journey to his cynical, almost psychotic personality. Collins also showed readers a humanistic side to Snow which makes his character in the original Hunger Games series so much more interesting and complex. The emotions and internal dialogue are all very vivid and gradually builds an ominous undertone which kept me engaged throughout the entire book. Collins intricately dabbles with the concepts of poverty, civil unrest, and romance that kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.
Favorite Line: “The ability to control things. Yes, that was what he’d loved best of all.”