Scan barcode
A review by vi_holmes
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I just don't understand why this book exists....
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an apparent attempt at a villain origin story for President Snow. But it fails miserably. There's no moment or change in his character to explain how he became the evil president in the original series. In fact, there's no change to his character, period. He is a self-absorbed, arrogant prat from beginning to end. There's no character arc whatsoever. There's not even Snow being evil in a fun way from the beginning. He's just an annoying elitist. That's it. After 500 pages...
All the other characters are just as hollow and one note as well. Even the love interest, Lucy Gray, that I assume was written to try to humanize Snow (it didn't), has absolutely no personality outside of her songs (which are mostly pointless wastes of pages) and being Appalachian-coded. She's really just a plot device and not a good one. Which is really a waste. If this book was told through her eyes like the trilogy did with Katniss, I think it would have been had so much more life and would have made much more sense as to why it was written in the first place. As it is, the little bit of her being the explanation behind The Hanging Tree and her involvement with Snow feels like an afterthought. I didn't root for them to be together at any point in the story because Snow treated her like a possession, not a person he was in love with.
I won't spoil anything about Sejanus's part in the story, but even he is the same character from beginning to end (though he is the closest one to having any sort of character arc). He's supposed to be the voice of the districts, but he just comes off as a reckless, loose canon that never thinks through his decisions.
I will say though that learning a bit of background for Tigris in the beginning was interesting even as it felt like such a random characters from the trilogy to give such thoughtout lore to. And when the Games first kick off, it did pick up and it was interesting to see the Games from the outside perspective. But even while the tributes were still in the arena it started to drop off again and got pretty repetitive. But those couple chapters and Tigris' background and Dr. Gaul, whom I found to be a fun villain at times, is why I'm giving this book 1.5 instead of 1 star.
Overall, I know I would have ended up reading it eventually out of curiosity, but I really hope the movie is better. I loved the original trilogy so much. I lost count of how many times I read them. This was such a let down.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an apparent attempt at a villain origin story for President Snow. But it fails miserably. There's no moment or change in his character to explain how he became the evil president in the original series. In fact, there's no change to his character, period. He is a self-absorbed, arrogant prat from beginning to end. There's no character arc whatsoever. There's not even Snow being evil in a fun way from the beginning. He's just an annoying elitist. That's it. After 500 pages...
All the other characters are just as hollow and one note as well. Even the love interest, Lucy Gray, that I assume was written to try to humanize Snow (it didn't), has absolutely no personality outside of her songs (which are mostly pointless wastes of pages) and being Appalachian-coded. She's really just a plot device and not a good one. Which is really a waste. If this book was told through her eyes like the trilogy did with Katniss, I think it would have been had so much more life and would have made much more sense as to why it was written in the first place. As it is, the little bit of her being the explanation behind The Hanging Tree and her involvement with Snow feels like an afterthought. I didn't root for them to be together at any point in the story because Snow treated her like a possession, not a person he was in love with.
I won't spoil anything about Sejanus's part in the story, but even he is the same character from beginning to end (though he is the closest one to having any sort of character arc). He's supposed to be the voice of the districts, but he just comes off as a reckless, loose canon that never thinks through his decisions.
I will say though that learning a bit of background for Tigris in the beginning was interesting even as it felt like such a random characters from the trilogy to give such thoughtout lore to. And when the Games first kick off, it did pick up and it was interesting to see the Games from the outside perspective. But even while the tributes were still in the arena it started to drop off again and got pretty repetitive. But those couple chapters and Tigris' background and Dr. Gaul, whom I found to be a fun villain at times, is why I'm giving this book 1.5 instead of 1 star.
Overall, I know I would have ended up reading it eventually out of curiosity, but I really hope the movie is better. I loved the original trilogy so much. I lost count of how many times I read them. This was such a let down.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Violence