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A review by readingcat1832
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
3.75
EDIT 22/11/2023: As I've sat with this book for more time, I've softened or changed my opinions on a lot of the initial criticisms I had. Which weren't all that harsh to begin with, I really liked it right away, but I think this book just improved for me with more reflection! Editing my earlier review to account for that.
Edited Review (all spoilers, all the way): I did find the first two parts a slog at times, and I don't think the book needed to be quite as long as it was---a good chunk longer than any of the original Hunger Games trilogy, none of which I'm sure even hit 400 pages. The book basically continues to gain momentum as you go further, but Part 1 especially sometimes felt like it took a little effort. I also stand by my opinion that some of the references to the original trilogy were a little contrived, such as the fact that Lucy Gray was the original composer of the hanging tree song; I thought it might have been more interesting if we kept the references to the original "hanging" that the song is based on and let the readers connect the dots, but oh well. On the other hand this really served to the movie's benefit, so hey. But those references were hardly enough to kill my enjoyment of the book.
Mostly I've had to mull over my thoughts on Snow as a POV character: at first I wasn't sure if I quite found him a compelling enough villain, but the more I thought about it, the more I think Suzanne did a great job with him. I loved seeing his increasing paranoia and self-entitlement and posessiveness over Lucy Gray, and I liked how much Suzanne commits to writing from the perspective of the most despicable person imaginable and getting into his terrible, terrible head. We didn't get anything that softened him or made him more sympathetic, and I'm glad.
But there were, as well, many elements I enjoyed. The third act was really gripping and went a long way in making up for the pacing of the first two parts of the book, and it had my complete attention, which is always impressive given my painfully poor attention span lately. The depiction of the earlier Hunger Games subverted my expectations, and how they came to be the Games we knew from the original trilogy, how they turned into a spectacle and how the Capitol citizens were able to get invested in watching children being slaughtered on national television every year. At times it's a little heavy handed maybe, but that's okay, it's not as if the books were ever subtle to begin with.
Plus, I really cared about Lucy Gray as a character, even if we only did get to see her through Snow's possessive eyes. And of course there was poor, poor Sejanus, who was absolutely my favourite and who I wanted so badly to be okay even if he was so obviously marked for death from the start.
Overall, Ballad doesn't quite match the levels of quality of the original trilogy, but that's a damn high bar, so I found it a welcome contribution and return to this terrible, terrible dystopian world. I'm really glad I read it and would definitely revisit it again at least as an audiobook.
Edited Review (all spoilers, all the way):
Mostly I've had to mull over my thoughts on Snow as a POV character: at first I wasn't sure if I quite found him a compelling enough villain, but the more I thought about it, the more I think Suzanne did a great job with him. I loved seeing his increasing paranoia and self-entitlement and posessiveness over Lucy Gray, and I liked how much Suzanne commits to writing from the perspective of the most despicable person imaginable and getting into his terrible, terrible head. We didn't get anything that softened him or made him more sympathetic, and I'm glad.
But there were, as well, many elements I enjoyed. The third act was really gripping and went a long way in making up for the pacing of the first two parts of the book, and it had my complete attention, which is always impressive given my painfully poor attention span lately. The depiction of the earlier Hunger Games subverted my expectations, and how they came to be the Games we knew from the original trilogy, how they turned into a spectacle and how the Capitol citizens were able to get invested in watching children being slaughtered on national television every year. At times it's a little heavy handed maybe, but that's okay, it's not as if the books were ever subtle to begin with.
Plus, I really cared about Lucy Gray as a character, even if we only did get to see her through Snow's possessive eyes. And of course there was poor, poor Sejanus, who was absolutely my favourite and who I wanted so badly to be okay even if he was so obviously marked for death from the start.
Overall, Ballad doesn't quite match the levels of quality of the original trilogy, but that's a damn high bar, so I found it a welcome contribution and return to this terrible, terrible dystopian world. I'm really glad I read it and would definitely revisit it again at least as an audiobook.