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A review by aforestofbooks
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes by Suzanne Collins
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I had no intention of picking up this book. After the masterpiece that is the Hunger Games trilogy and The Underland Chronicles, I was hesitant to read book focused on President Snow and his villain origin story. However, Scholastics offered to send me a copy for free, so I couldn't say no, and decided to give it a chance.
This book took me much longer to read than it should have. The issue wasn't the pacing, but more the parallels I kept seeing between the Capitol and Israel, and the Districts and Palestine. It was hard to read sometimes seeing the kind of rhetoric that Snow and his fellow classmates and teachers and governments espouse and how similar it is to Israel's propaganda and lies we're seeing on the news right now. There were a lot of scenes that just felt too similar to real life.
I do want to reread this book one day and actually take notes or annotate this book, just so I can write a proper review.
The discussions Chorio (yes, I call him that because he reminds me of the infection) has with Dr. Gaul were horrifying at times, but also enlightening in a dark way. It put so much into perspective and made me realize that maybe this was an important story to tell. A lot of villain origin stories are personal; something happens to the main character, they're hurt by someone they love/trust, and instead of being the victim, they choose revenge. But Suzanne does something more with this book. There isn't just one main villain, but a society built on control, power, chaos, violence, and justification. We get to see the structural and societal aspects of how a governing body uses power to subjugate people, and then uses their acts of resistance to wage a continuous war against them and their values to stay on top. Like I said, the parallels with what is going on in our world right now fit so well with this book. It made for a difficult read.
There are two classic examples we see in this book that reminded me so much of the genocide happening in Palestine right now.
The first being the murder of a mentor by a tribute. We see the mentor toying with the tribute, playing with the food, keeping it just out of reach, knowing the tribute is starving. And when the tribute retaliates, the Capitol media twists the story to prove to their audience that the districts are violent and uncontrollable and the Hunger Games is a necessity to remind them where they stand in the social hierarchy. We see the same thing happening in Gaza. Israel blockages the Gaza strip, turning it into a concentration camp, restricting what can go in and out, and having complete control of electricity, food, water, fuel, and supplies. This isn't a new thing that happened just after October 7th. And yet when people fight back and resist, as is their right under International Law, what does Israel do? Decides to play the victim and use an act of resistance, a moment of self defence, to commit a genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza. And they enjoy every second of it too. Just like we saw the Capitol dragging the tributes that ran from the bombing at the arena on the streets, relishing the torture they can inflict on the districts, we see the same macabre amusement in their tiktoks as they laugh while blowing up buildings and mosques, attacking schools and hospitals, and targeting civilians.
The second example we see is what happens during the tour of the arena. It doesn't take a genius to realize the bombing was staged by the Capitol to get the citizens riled up against the Districts, to get them to watch the Hunger Games with relish rather than discomfort. And what do we see irl. That Israel knew about Hamas' plans a year in advance and did nothing to stop it, and not only that, but they let teenage girls, who had no experience, blindly shoot into crowds of people killing their own, knowing they could use the deaths of their own civilians to wage a war against innocent people, also knowing that they would have plenty of support from the other colonizers they look up to.
I sit here writing this review, and I can't help wondering how people watched the movie and did not make the connections that I'm making right now. And this isn't even everything. There were a lot of conversations in this book with Dr. Gaul that I'm blanking on right now that go into more depth about the mental gymnastics colonizers/oppressors come up with to justify their war crimes. There is a lot of mention of chaos, control, and contract, and how humans are inherently violent and will attack if put in certain situations. It implies that chaos is inevitable, but by using control and contracts, people in a position of power can create a sort of "controlled chaos environment", which we see again in real world examples.
Propaganda, dehumanization, and villainization are used by the media and colonizers like the US, Britain, Europe, and Israel to mark brown, Arab people as dangerous, violent individuals who either need to be enlightened by white people's "democracy", or be subjugated and manipulated in order for these colonizers to make use of their natural resources for their own capitalistic gains. Their lives don't amount to the same as white lives, and can be used any way they please. And if a bunch of Zionist terrorists want to ethnically cleanse a country off the map and take it as their own, why would anyone care when they're just brown Arabs?
Reading this book through Chorio's perspective was frustrating. I honestly do not understand how people were falling in love with him. His narrative makes you want to strangle him. He is full of himself, and so obsessed with control and possessiveness when it comes to Lucy Gray, that it's close to impossible to ignore all the red flags just because he's charming. Everything he does has an ulterior motive. He's always in it for himself. At one point, I think he mentions how he doesn't really care about anything except his own comfort. And we see that at the end of the book.
The ending felt a little rushed. A lot happens in a few pages and as the reader, you're left with a lot of questions. But what is clear is that Chorio remains Chorio until the very end. He has slight side quests where he considers being different/better, but at the end of the day, he cares more about his own comfort and wellbeing, and knows that that is only possible with control. Whether it's controlling the narrative, the people, the news, etc.
4.5/5 stars. A book I will 100% pick up again one day to read more closely.
This book took me much longer to read than it should have. The issue wasn't the pacing, but more the parallels I kept seeing between the Capitol and Israel, and the Districts and Palestine. It was hard to read sometimes seeing the kind of rhetoric that Snow and his fellow classmates and teachers and governments espouse and how similar it is to Israel's propaganda and lies we're seeing on the news right now. There were a lot of scenes that just felt too similar to real life.
I do want to reread this book one day and actually take notes or annotate this book, just so I can write a proper review.
The discussions Chorio (yes, I call him that because he reminds me of the infection) has with Dr. Gaul were horrifying at times, but also enlightening in a dark way. It put so much into perspective and made me realize that maybe this was an important story to tell. A lot of villain origin stories are personal; something happens to the main character, they're hurt by someone they love/trust, and instead of being the victim, they choose revenge. But Suzanne does something more with this book. There isn't just one main villain, but a society built on control, power, chaos, violence, and justification. We get to see the structural and societal aspects of how a governing body uses power to subjugate people, and then uses their acts of resistance to wage a continuous war against them and their values to stay on top. Like I said, the parallels with what is going on in our world right now fit so well with this book. It made for a difficult read.
There are two classic examples we see in this book that reminded me so much of the genocide happening in Palestine right now.
The first being the murder of a mentor by a tribute. We see the mentor toying with the tribute, playing with the food, keeping it just out of reach, knowing the tribute is starving. And when the tribute retaliates, the Capitol media twists the story to prove to their audience that the districts are violent and uncontrollable and the Hunger Games is a necessity to remind them where they stand in the social hierarchy. We see the same thing happening in Gaza. Israel blockages the Gaza strip, turning it into a concentration camp, restricting what can go in and out, and having complete control of electricity, food, water, fuel, and supplies. This isn't a new thing that happened just after October 7th. And yet when people fight back and resist, as is their right under International Law, what does Israel do? Decides to play the victim and use an act of resistance, a moment of self defence, to commit a genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza. And they enjoy every second of it too. Just like we saw the Capitol dragging the tributes that ran from the bombing at the arena on the streets, relishing the torture they can inflict on the districts, we see the same macabre amusement in their tiktoks as they laugh while blowing up buildings and mosques, attacking schools and hospitals, and targeting civilians.
The second example we see is what happens during the tour of the arena. It doesn't take a genius to realize the bombing was staged by the Capitol to get the citizens riled up against the Districts, to get them to watch the Hunger Games with relish rather than discomfort. And what do we see irl. That Israel knew about Hamas' plans a year in advance and did nothing to stop it, and not only that, but they let teenage girls, who had no experience, blindly shoot into crowds of people killing their own, knowing they could use the deaths of their own civilians to wage a war against innocent people, also knowing that they would have plenty of support from the other colonizers they look up to.
I sit here writing this review, and I can't help wondering how people watched the movie and did not make the connections that I'm making right now. And this isn't even everything. There were a lot of conversations in this book with Dr. Gaul that I'm blanking on right now that go into more depth about the mental gymnastics colonizers/oppressors come up with to justify their war crimes. There is a lot of mention of chaos, control, and contract, and how humans are inherently violent and will attack if put in certain situations. It implies that chaos is inevitable, but by using control and contracts, people in a position of power can create a sort of "controlled chaos environment", which we see again in real world examples.
Propaganda, dehumanization, and villainization are used by the media and colonizers like the US, Britain, Europe, and Israel to mark brown, Arab people as dangerous, violent individuals who either need to be enlightened by white people's "democracy", or be subjugated and manipulated in order for these colonizers to make use of their natural resources for their own capitalistic gains. Their lives don't amount to the same as white lives, and can be used any way they please. And if a bunch of Zionist terrorists want to ethnically cleanse a country off the map and take it as their own, why would anyone care when they're just brown Arabs?
Reading this book through Chorio's perspective was frustrating. I honestly do not understand how people were falling in love with him. His narrative makes you want to strangle him. He is full of himself, and so obsessed with control and possessiveness when it comes to Lucy Gray, that it's close to impossible to ignore all the red flags just because he's charming. Everything he does has an ulterior motive. He's always in it for himself. At one point, I think he mentions how he doesn't really care about anything except his own comfort. And we see that at the end of the book.
The ending felt a little rushed. A lot happens in a few pages and as the reader, you're left with a lot of questions. But what is clear is that Chorio remains Chorio until the very end. He has slight side quests where he considers being different/better, but at the end of the day, he cares more about his own comfort and wellbeing, and knows that that is only possible with control. Whether it's controlling the narrative, the people, the news, etc.
4.5/5 stars. A book I will 100% pick up again one day to read more closely.