Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

212 reviews

hannahcstocks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Eating disorder, Death, Alcohol, Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Deportation, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Xenophobia, Body horror, Child death, Cannibalism, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Classism, Drug abuse, Confinement, Dysphoria, Gore, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Genocide, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Police brutality, Slavery, Stalking, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, and War

mle11's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death, Gun violence, War, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Police brutality, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Abandonment, Dementia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Vomit

theirgracegrace's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Quite literally judging a book by its cover, I had originally written off this one as a cash grab by Collins due the success of The Hunger Games. I have never been so pleased to be proven wrong in my life.

The story follows a tense summer in the life of Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president that we meet in the main trilogy sixty-odd years later. He is eighteen years old and slated to be mentor to Lucy Gray Baird, a Covey girl living in District 12. He develops an infatuation with her early on, and much of the book is given over to how he tries to keep her safe before and after the 10th Hunger Games. 

The characterization of Coriolanus is incredibly moving, showing how the idealistic teen has his critiques of and subtle attacks on the Capitol used against him and against Lucy Gray. It crushes his spirit, and turns him into the monster who betrays everyone and trusts no one that we later see. Nostalgic nods exist to the main series are plentiful, as it appears that the young Coriolanus was instrumental in the implementation of much of the horror of the Games. 

All-in-all, a wonderful (if stressful!) book that played with my expectations just as cleanly as the Games themselves. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the main series and wants to hear a tale of how it started!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Confinement, Alcohol, Body horror, Child death, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Violence, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Sexism, Blood, Vomit, War, Xenophobia, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Miscarriage, and Bullying

Minor: Excrement and Infidelity

Two of the tributes contract rabies and it is described in detail when they suddenly show symptoms in the arena. Snakes (including snake attacks, one of which is fatal) are common in the book, as the title suggests. There are two hangings of criminals that occur in the book in the latter portion

cardan_greenbriar_1's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Vraiment j'ai adoré, comme tous les autres tomes mais j'ai mis que 4 car je l'ai trouvé un peu long à certains moments.
J'ai adoré Lucy gray mais le personnage de Coriolanus est détestable. Il utilise tout le monde pour avoir du pouvoir. 
<spoilerIl fait semblant d'être l'ami de Sejanus, il utilise Lucy Gray pour remporter le prix Plinth, même si au final il l'a pas eu parce qu'ils se sont rendus compte de sa tricherie. Il cherche tout le temps à excuser ses actes en se disant qu'il avait pas le choix alors que si

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, War, Violence, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Death, Genocide, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Addiction

bxnny's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Death, Body horror, Blood, Animal cruelty, Child death, Deportation, Gore, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Toxic friendship, War, Xenophobia, Animal death, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Slavery

Minor: Chronic illness and Excrement

rchulin1's review

adventurous hopeful sad 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

4.5

Wow just wow it's hard to not get popular books spoiled but even so l still was surprised. I really was able to transport myself into the games into district twelve on a whole other level. The ending was so surprising I could definitely feel Snow's insanity building something | kept thinking about was the title: the ballad of songbirds and snakes. So at first I assumed the title was to be about Lucy's time in the hunger games the battle between her innocence and her violence which is true in a sense but I feel like the true symbolism was that Snow eventually became another snake Lucy tried to handle in a way. So Lucy is the songbird and Snow is the snake. Throughout the entire book we see Snows internal battle with the mentality he was raised with being a child of the capital and the mentality of someone on the outside although he was only in the Games for a small moment the entire book was in a way his own game. He was stripped of his innocence his way of seeing the capital through rose colored lenses into truly seeing and not only not fearing the capitals ideals but embracing them. A few times he mentions how he impulsively does things and those impulses are his inner self trying to break through even with him aiding Lucy it just shows how selfish he is he saved her for his own benefit. Lastly I deeply appreciated the small nods to the other hunger games books "May the odds ever be in our favor", the meadow song, his dislike of mocking jays, Katniss! I can deeply see how he changed the hunger games and the role he played in the beginning he dislikes how the tributes were transported in cargo holds and in the other books we see the tributes now being in a far fancier train. We see the peacekeepers being more harsh and we see how the arena changes every year so that the former years games doesn't play a role in this years and so on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Animal death, Classism, Medical trauma, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Murder, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Child death, Confinement, Death, Toxic relationship, War, Blood, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Police brutality, Cannibalism, and Mass/school shootings

whitne_ey's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Police brutality, Child death, Classism, Death of parent, Blood, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Gun violence, Genocide, Toxic relationship, War, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Cursing, Drug abuse, Confinement, Vomit, Addiction, Drug use, and Alcohol

thebookkeepers's review against another edition

dark medium-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

3.5

What a villain story!  Seeing Snow’s internal monologue really set in how abhorrent and unlikable he was. I felt like he had more character depth in the film because we could pretend he meant well in the beginning, but there’s no denying his evilness in this one.  I enjoyed the movie and I think that helped me enjoy most of the book, but definitely feel like there was a missed opportunity to make the reader *like* him prior to his turning on Lucy Grey. Alas he was just awful and didn’t deserve any of what he ended up with at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

bag_end_library's review

adventurous dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Good prequel to the Hunger Games series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Addiction, Child death, Murder, Classism, Death, Genocide, Blood, Bullying, Alcohol, Animal death, and Gun violence

paloverdepages's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism, Child death, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Vomit, Animal cruelty, and Animal death