The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: Set 10 years after the Panem revolution ends, the Capitol is still rebuilding, the Snow family is near destitute and Coriolanus is looking for a way to university. Enter a mentorship program between District tributes and Capitol teens, an effort to boost engagement and interest in the fledgling annual competition, The Hunger Games.
Expectation: Sympathy for the devil.
Reality: This Hunger Games prequel serves as a decent queue-up to the original series, but the President Snow baggage does make it difficult to connect with him the same way you could with Katniss and crew.
Recommended For: Fans of the original series, and the best place to start for those that haven’t read them yet.
Why I Read It: When it feels like the world is falling apart, nostalgia for a simpler time (ah…2011) seemed right.
My Take: Let's be honest, were you clamoring for a book about President Snow? Especially after we learned what a cold-hearted bastard he really was in "The Hunger Games" trilogy?
Me neither.
When this prequel was first announced, I foolishly held on to the hope that Mags (RIP) was going to be the central character, but Collins is too smart for that. With the original series, she challenged our collective decency — watching as the world devoured a young adult series about children murdering each other for entertainment. And in that respect she showed that while we might view ourselves as District, we’re really all Capitol.
Maybe I’m being influenced by Donald Sutherland’s fantastic embodiment of the character in the film series, but the more I thought about a book with Snow as the central character, it seemed 100 percent the right approach. He’s villainous but kinda likable in a Hannibal Lecter sort of way, and you know there had to be more to the story of his obsession with Katniss.
All that to say, overall "Ballad" delivers on what made the original series so engaging and bypasses much of what I found annoying — mainly the love triangle (unpopular opinion, I know). While there are aspects that feel a little like a reboot — I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another Snow-focused book in our future — there was enough to make this feel different while honoring the original series.
Collins serves up an origin story, not only for the events that accelerated Snow's moral decay, but also for The Hunger Games as we first witness them in Book 1. To me the latter is what helped drive the story, and it was a smart move by Collins to throw in enough nuggets to keep fans intrigued and, in some cases, reminded of specific events if you're nearing a decade since reading the series like I am.
But when the Games are over, the last third of the book began to feel long and a little forced — not to mention boring. Honestly, it’s not too dissimilar to how I felt about "Mockingjay."
Which makes sense because tonally, this is a close cousin to "Mockingjay," but I found the first part of the story closer to "The Hunger Games," and the second part more similar to "Catching Fire," just not as exciting.
Yes, there are plots that make you almost feel sorry for Snow, but don't worry, you'll still hate him when it is done — maybe even more.
Sequels are difficult to pull off, and prequels even more so. Collins deserves a lot of credit for revisiting a beloved series and trying something different. This is a must read for fans and a good entry point for those that haven't read the series yet. I’d be curious to see if someone who starts the series with “Ballad” will have a different perception of Snow at the end of “Mockingjay.”
For audiobook fans, the narration is really bad. The production is shoddy, and the narrator reads every character the same. Plus, there are a bunch of songs throughout (origin story for “The Hanging Tree,” too), and he just talked through them all. Lame!
Rating (story): 3.5/5 stars
Rating (narration): 1/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: May 26 – June 4, 2020
Multi-tasking: Good to go.
