The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games) Hardcover – May 19, 2020

4.5 starsAmazon delivered my copy early, so I'm going to do a spoiler free review and then a spoilery one. Pardon if this winds up sounding like an English paper. I have thought so much on the morals and questions in this book that I feel like I should have read this in school.Note: I'm writing this review with the express belief that you, reader, have at least read the book description. Otherwise why are you reading this review?I want to start this off by saying two things. One, this is not a hero story. Snow is never once, in my opinion, shown to be a hero in this in what we modern folks would call a hero. He's no Luke Skywalker or redeemed villain. This isn't some sob backstory to explain "why the bad guy is bad." This is yet another set of layers to the onion that is Snow.Second, this book is dark. It's been a minute since I read the original trilogy, but I swear it wasn't quite as graphic as this book was. Cannibalism is mentioned, and it's shown/talked about that someone sawed the leg off a dead woman and ran off with it. One character is killed then hung on a hook and paraded. Another is also gruesomely displayed after their death. Several characters are dragged through processions to "prove a point," another character is hung from two large poles and left to basically die in the sun. Multiple accounts of vomiting/poison throughout, and a general unpleasantness at the lack of regard for human life.Non-spoilery review:This book makes you think. A lot. It makes you question things, and wonder if maybe Snow is right (he's not), but it's written in such a way that he's not a villain. Donald Sutherland in an interview made a great point in saying that Snow isn't a villain, he's just a ruthless man doing what he thinks is right to keep his home and country in one piece."He does it so well. And he doesn't think he's a bad person. He thinks it's the only way society can survive. And whether you think he's right or wrong, he doesn't think he's bad. He likes himself."This should be the mantra for this book. Snow is a conflicting, flawed human. In our society, he's evil, a sociopath or a psychopath. He's a murderer and a killer. He's a bad guy. In his world, he's one of the masses. He simply lives as he's been raised to, with a mentality that has been ingrained in him since the war between the Districts and the Capitol. He's simply more ruthless then most and has the guts to make what he considers the "hard decisions."Regardless of the other characters in this, they're all props to his story--which fits well with the Snow we know from The Hunger Games. Everyone is second stage to Snow and his life. This is his evolution from being a child to a man, to becoming the Snow we know and love/hate.I definitely don't think this book is for everyone. I'm sitting here with my mom breathing down my neck because she can't wait to read it, and I don't think she'll like it at all, and she's a diehard THG trilogy fan. Why? Because not everyone likes to read depressing books. There's no redemption in this. There's no saving someone from themselves. This is the fall, stumble, plummet into being a not great person and embracing it fully.So take that as you will. Full spoilers below about everything.P.s. This is a standalone.SPOILERS BELOWOkay, so, I was worried about this book when I read the first chapter sample and it got announced that Snow would be training the District 12 girl. I thought, oh crap, it's gonna be a cliche YA. It's gonna have a stupid romance that undercuts the whole plot and makes him a sap.And yeah, it did that, and up until the last 50 pages I was teetering on a 3-3.5 stars. And then oh boy, the end.Lucy Grey was a sweet girl, but she felt off since the beginning. I still can't fully put my finger on it, but her and Snow's relationship felt so <i>wrong</i> the entirety of the book. The red flags went up repeatedly every time he made comments about how she was his, and even so far as to say she was his property, and that's all kinds of wrong. And even though their romance was cute and fluffy, it felt bad, tainted. You knew something was going to happen. It always does in these villain backstories. Usually the whole reason the villain is bad is because the love interest gets brutally killed and then they're like whelp, guess I'll just be evil.Not in this book.Snow constantly struggles with morality and right and wrong throughout this. Should he turn in his friend to the Capitol because they're colluding with rebels and could tear down the (flawed) infrastructure? Or should he turn a blind eye and let his friend do his own thing? Is the Hunger Games wrong or good? Is it wrong to view the District people as second class humans? And so on.This book broaches the topic of racism in very broad terms with the whole District/Capitol thing.You've always known there was a divide between them, but in this, you really see how much the Capitol looks down on the Districts, and you can easily see how that morphs into such a hatred and distaste by the time Katniss first enters the Hunger Games.But I digress. Snow struggles with morality, but he's flawed and very, very imperfect. He rationalizes every death he takes as self-defense or some other reason when really he's just murdered someone because it's inconvenient for him. He kills (or at least removes her from the picture; it's ambiguous) Lucy Grey in the end because she's a loose end and too free. He does it. Not someone else, not some freak accident. He chooses to do it and, by the time it happens, you already know what direction he's headed in so it's not quite another nail in the coffin. It fully feels like him tying up loose ends so he can go do whatever he wants.All the nods to THG characters and names was cool. You also had a lot of The Great Gatsby vibes in the Old Money versus New Money mentality that a lot of the Capitol had with District people who gained a fortune and bought their way into the Capitol life. They're looked down upon by the old families and viewed as trash.You saw a lot of the evolution in the Hunger Games, and you can see how it begins to change and grow into what Katniss and Peeta suffered through. You see how it begins to change from a simple punishment to a sport and a holiday, with the growing encouragement that it should be a normal and good thing.You also see a side of the Capitol you most definitely did not see in the trilogy--suffering. A lot of the book shows Snow struggling with having been a small child living through the Dark Days and the war. He was 8 when the Capitol won, and even then it was hard. You learn about the hell the Capitol lived through as they were besieged by the Districts' army and forced to ration, starvation, and cannibalism. It's a hard picture, and it's so blatantly told. Collins didn't hold back any punches in this. I never felt like what was done was for shock and awe for the reader, but it was definitely that for the story, and it made sense. Regardless of the Capitol not being at war with the Districts anymore, the tensions were still so high that it makes sense for the Capitol to overreact in their retaliation of events. So when one mentor gets killed by her tribute, they shoot the tribute and parade her body around on a hook at the mentor's funeral. It's disgusting, debasing, and shows how much the Capitol views the Districts as nothing more than rodents or livestock.Anyway, I'll stop talking. Go read it yourself. It's a hard read, a heavy read, but it was very, very enjoyable.

In the book, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins, a young Coriolanus Snow and his family were struggling with poverty, and with it, his chance to enter the university. He is then appointed as the mentor of the weakest competitor in the Hunger Games, the district 12 girl, whose name was Lucy Gray Baird. Just when he thought there was no chance he was winning the games and the Plinth prize, she proved her worth to him with a rebellious move, killing the District 12 mayor’s daughter with a snake during reaping day. The book is great, with lots of suspense and plot twists. The question of whether Coriolanus Snow would be victorious or would he be doomed to a future of poverty and possibly be sent to the districts. This book kept me on edge, and I would recommend it to anyone.

The Hunger Games is an incredible series and I've always been curious about Snow's story. The Ballard Of Songbirds & Snakes truly sets us on a journey of Snow and why he is the way he is as an adult. Starting with the 10th Hunger Games and using students as mentors not only has us on the journey with the tributes, but with the mentors. Snow is the 12th tributes, Lucy Gray, mentor and once his story rounds out... I find myself on Snow's side. He definitely has some luck and I wont lie, I found myself smiling at the end for him. If it wasn't for Snow, Katniss would have never been who she was. It was a lil slow at some parts, hence my rating, but amazingly written and so so good. 10/10 recommend.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I love philosophical and moral quandaries. It is fun for me to debate topics in that general field and think deeply about aspects of life like what the true nature of man is, as is discussed in this novel. However, I also love stories. Over complicating story-telling with hidden meanings and philosophy gets dull after too long and sometimes you do just need a story that doesn’t make you think too hard. If that’s you, still buy this book, but wait until you have to mental capacity to think a little more.This book is brilliant from the framing to the writing to just the everything, it is absolutely brilliant. It felt realistic, like something that could actually happen. Coriolanus, from the very beginning, is shown to be a little two-faced, easily figuring out what he needs to say to make people like him and it works. At the beginning, I remember feeling casting uncomfortable with the knowledge that Coriolanus, if he wanted to, could have easily fooled me and I would have no idea. What is most chilling about him even from the beginning is just how REAL he seems, like someone you would actually meet walking down the street, and by the end, I nearly felt sick seeing just how similar to myself he is and the sheer ease with which I, in different circumstances and conditions, could become just as twisted.But what really sets this book apart for me is how she portrayals the “villain origin story.” When I think of origin stories, I think of the classics: murdered girlfriend, abusive parents, abandoned by the world, betrayed by all, wrongfully imprisoned, etc. We’ve all heard and read something along those lines at least once, but this is different. Coriolanus doesn’t become the President Snow we love to loathe because of tragedy. We get the unique pleasure to watch from our seats in his mind as he is faced with several different philosophies: Dr. Gaul’s “we’re all monsters who have to be controlled” idea, Lucy Grey’s “everybody’s born as clean as a whistle” mentality, and Sejanus’ “fundamental rights of man” mentality. We watch him struggle through philosophies, trying to determine which one he will allow to influence him all while his strings are secretly being pulled without his knowledge. What we have here in this book is a REAL person who is a student who CHOOSES to view the world in such a way that causes him to believe his actions during and after this book and into the Hunger Games series are the right thing to do. He see his CHOICES not his tragedy shape him.If you’re still here, I just have one thing more. I loved this book and I think we all have a lot we can learn from it. If you’re considering it, buy it, even if it just collects dust for a while. One day, you can draw it out and embark on the twisted story of a realistic villain that will twist your insides in ways no obviously fictional villain can.