Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I didn’t know what I’d think about this going in, but I did find that it was an effective, and engaging story with some highly complex characters. It also gave a lot of context into the Games themselves, which I was super interested by.

For a 500+ page book, it wrapped up a little too fast for my tastes, with all the big climactic elements happening in the last 40 pages. I feel it needed more time to breathe, and for the character turns to be truly explored, but I was overall still satisfied, and would recommend if you’re a fan of the series.

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touchegiantsquid's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was skeptical when I heard about this prequel, but I was wrong. I think it's possible that Suzanne Collins holds the unpopular opinion about her books, that you shouldn't hate the players, you should hate the game. That's an easy message to see when you have lovable characters like in the original series. But by choosing to focus on future president Snow, she is able to push that point further. I wonder if this is a reaction to the movie adaptations of the original series. So much of those movies applied the techniques to get in-world-spectators excited about the games to get real-world-viewers engaged. But I don't think it lands that it's supposed to be ironic. This book is, I think, an attempt to drive that point home more clearly. It shows that the craft of narrative can make compelling characters, even as they pursue terrible ends and use terrible means. That tension for the reader makes the theme more obvious yotu time around, I just hope people will appreciate it.

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jenna_justi2004's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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wilamina's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

If you're picking this book up after reading the hunger games trilogy, then honestly I'd say I not worth it. Look up the basic plot and leave it at that because this book does not live up to the emotional wonders that the hunger games have. It feels like all the colour was stripped out. The best part of all the hunger games books are the actual games right? Because they're deeply emotional and everyone is running on adrenaline and a willingness to kill. But in these hunger games, barely anything happens. It's dragged on for way too long. everytime a character dies its just bland, like it's narrated by snow watching it on tv, and it reads like watching a grainy video with no sound as a character stand another then moves on. The whole thing feels like security footage being played for half the book. Then 2 thirds kf the way in it feels like the entire plot of the book is abandoned (no spoilers just look as the section title). The only redeeming factor I'd say would be knowing a little more about what makes snow tick, and why it hates 12 so much. But like I said, just look it up, don't bother going through all 517 pages. The writing style is also very elegant, but that can't make up for bland characters and lack of a cohesive plot line. It wasn't a horrible book, and the idea to write about snow was definitely a good one, but Collins could have executed it much better.

if you ask me, I think some interesting stuff could have happened if snow had gotten stuck in the arena, there he could have maybe became part of the games, and it would definitely have amped up the plot and give the hunger games fans much more if what they loved about the series in the first place. There's a reason many people think the series went down hill after catching fire, it's that the environment the games make is so tense that it's almost impossible to write a dry plot.

So in conclusion, the ballad of songbirds and snakes was annoying average, with few redeeming factors to warrant it a slightly higher grade, but without it's association with the hunger games, it would probably never have been shelved.

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