Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

26 reviews

jenna_justi2004's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Grief, Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Gore, Murder, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Alcohol, Animal death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Stalking, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

emfass's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Police brutality, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Cannibalism, Dementia, Eating disorder, Torture, and Vomit

Main character is food insecure for the first part of the book; mother died in childbirth

anastasiaf's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

So I tried to read it as a printed book but I didn’t get very far. Eventually I was looking for a new audiobook to read and this came up and that was a good decision. I think I enjoyed it more than most because I signed up for the 16 hours and didn’t expect much.

I loved hearing about the backstory of the games. I hated Coriolanus, which is to be expected, but I think there were some things there could have been done better - a different audiobook reader? More craziness? Idk.

Excited to re-read the original trilogy now with this new backstory.

——
3 Dec: a YouTube video about this book came up and it made me really appreciate the philosophical discussion of Locke vs Hobbs theories of people and society, plus Lucy Gray being a nod to a poem by Wordsworth, and gave it an extra 1/3 star (rounded down to 4.25)

I’d give it more, but the whole period where he is in the district felt longer than it needed to be, especially since we know he must come back at some point as he becomes president. Maybe it was just an issue with pacing.

There was an interesting point made by one youtuber that some of those pacing problems (I’m glad the games were boring action wise, not to change that) could have been solved by giving us Lucy Gray’s point of view - it actually would have really worked with the title, and through her we might have learned more about the old world. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Stalking

maddiezreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Stalking, War, Alcohol, Blood, Colonisation, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Murder, Police brutality, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Rape, Racism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, and Vomit

elle_dee's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Stalking, Torture, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War

elizlizabeth's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I'm a huge Hunger Games fan, and I really wanted to like this book but honestly it felt endless.

The minute Corolianus hops on that train after the HG ended I literally sighed out loud, I thought it was going to timeskip to like when Corolianus was an adult.

In my opnion, there was a lot of unnecesary hurdles in Corolianus path that seemed to be there only to make the reader empathize out of pity because he never came out of them wiser or better or even worse given that it's a villain story.
Lucy and Corolianus' love story was utterly disturbing and it would've been much better if those two were best friends or something. The paralells between Lucy and Katniss were nailed over and over and I thought them meaningless to be honest, since there was never any kind of love tension/estranged family bond between Katniss and Snow in the original trilogy.
If anything I think this book made me dislike Coriolanus not as a character, but as a villain which is a shame because President Snow is one the scarier antagonists YA books have.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Gaslighting, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Violence, and Xenophobia