A review by teethmachine
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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

5.0

This was really interesting, uncovering these little secrets bit by bit about Snow. Every time something new happened I went "oh yep that's why he really hates Katniss so much yep, makes sense", and it was so nicely woven together to make her just The Absolute Worst Thing To Ever Happen To Him. Honestly, it makes her eventually defeating him even more satisfying. 

Spoiler for plot stuff:
And it's weird, going into this, I was like "I hate Snow, yucky, icky", but then I started getting into his head and his relationship with Lucy was really sweet, and I knew that something had to happen because before Katniss, District 12 had never had a victor, so I was convinced Lucy was going to die in the Games, because she had to, but then she didn't!! And they were going to live and be happy, but I knew something bad had to happen, and I just so desperately hoped that Snow wouldn't be the one to instigate it, but he was, and I still can't figure out if Lucy did actually betray him?? I just went on this wild roller coaster from "yucky bad Snow" to "awww they're in love, he's actually kind of sweet" to "YUCKY MAN BAD" so it's been a wild few days lmao.
 

But also: why the hell were there two characters with names ending in 'anus'? I spent the entire book thinking about anuses. Honestly, hilarious, would give it 5 stars just for this 
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