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

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

Seriously, this book was absolutely fantastic! After I finished it, I felt like I could talk about it for ages. Even now, a year later as I’m writing this review, I feel like I could talk to someone about it for hours because I think that it was so clever.

Admittedly, I was originally concerned with Collins’ choice to center a prequel around Snow, but the choices and characterization that she put into him was genius.



I didn’t care much for the idea of a redemption story or a cliché villain origin story. At first, I was sort of afraid of this when he was presented as a part of a broken family after the war. I thought that she was going to redeem him and explain his actions away with excuses of him just needing money.

Up until the very end, I believe that she was going to redeem him. And then, she didn’t.

And I was almost ashamed of how easily I could have forgiven him? I almost found myself ROOTING for him in the end, but then with the murder of Lucy Gray, I realized that she had fooled us in the same way that Snow fooled everyone else. 



Overall, this book was so fantastic! I need to do a re-read of this entire series, but especially this book. 

My favorite character was definitely Lucy Gray!