The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
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Fantasy · Romance · Action
I won’t hide my disappointment!
I have been the biggest fan of “The Hunger Games” since I read the first book back in 2018. I fell in love with them. I couldn’t stop recommending them, so I was the happiest when I heard they were publishing a new film.
The story of Coriolanus Snow, the president. I thought the book was new, so I was surprised to know that Suzanne Collins was publishing another book. You can imagine my surprise when I realized the book was from 2020, and not from 2023 (3 years are not of much difference but still, I could have read it 3 years ago!).
I started reading it right away, and at first it was up to my expectations. However, the longer I read it the more disappointed I was.
I thought the story of Coriolanus would be intriguing and infuriating. We knew from the previous books that Snow climbed his way up by poisoning people, that him and Tigris parted their ways… I thought we would be obtaining some answers about that, but I’m still confused.
Overall, the story is entertaining. We can see how Coriolanus changes: from being naive, to his dreams. How he falls in love, him becoming a monster… But for my liking, I think the book concentrates too much in certain issues and live out the most intriguing ones.
Now, I want to make myself clear. It is true I am disappointed with the book, but that doesn’t change the fact that I would read it all over again if I had the chance. “The Hunger Games” are my obsession, the books that I go to over and over again, and I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t know the hole story of Coriolanus. “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” isn’t a book that I would recommend for how good it is, but because of the story it tells, because we wouldn’t be real hunger game lovers if we didn’t know about the real story of Coriolanus.
The plot
A prequel to Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells the coming-of-age story of future president and villain Coriolanus Snow. Published by Scholastic Press in 2020, this young adult dystopian/soft sci-fi novel depicts an earlier Panem, the fictional country in which the annual Hunger Games take place, and details the contest’s cruel evolution. As introduced in the first three books and four film adaptations, the Games force a total of 24 young men and women to fight to the death. The last survivor secures ample food and riches for their impoverished district—hence the moniker “Hunger” Games. This contest serves as both punishment and reparation to the all-powerful Capitol: The 12 districts each sacrifice two of their children, one boy and one girl, as the blood price of their failed rebellion.
