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

4.0

When I read this book when it was first released, I only rated it 3 stars. As much as I love and want more Hunger Games books, I didn’t see the point to a prequel book about evil President Snow and one of the earlier games. Revisiting this book in preparation for the upcoming movie, reading with a more critical lens, has improved my opinion of the book and just reaffirmed my admiration for Collins’ writing, world-building, and strong political themes.

Coriolanus Snow and his surviving family are not exactly thriving after the rebellion that tore apart Panem. The Hunger Games have been going on for 10 years, and now Panem leadership is looking for ways to spice up the Games and get the nation involved. Snow is paired with Lucy Grey Baird, a young girl from District 12. Together, they will change the history of the Games as they know it.

This is a Young Adult novel. The writing reflects the age group this is targeted at. I don’t want to call the writing simplistic, but this is an “easy” read. I loved the pacing for the first 2/3rds of the book, not a huge fan of the final 1/3rd, but it does an amazing job of cementing Snow’s character into the man we come to know in the OG trilogy. This book is in no way Snow apologist literature; from the language Snow uses when he thinks of Lucy Grey to the multiple times where Snow chooses “evil,” Collins practically beats us over the head with how Snow is unredeemable (and I say that in a good way, the lack of subtlety is incredibly necessary in a story like this).

If you just read TBoSaS and THG at face value, you’ll have an entertaining read. This book won’t hit the same and the final book will be frustrating. But when you take the time to unpack the themes of how propaganda is made and perpetuated, the effects of war on CHILDREN, and “The Human Condition,” gods, these books are good. So fucking good.