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A review by abookishmagpie
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I was never sure I was actually going to read this book because I just didn't think we needed a book focusing on young President Snow...especially not one that was over 500 pages. I didn't really care to know his 'villain origin story', he was just a really awful, despicable man and I was okay with knowing that. However with the movie coming out I decided why not give it a try and see what happens, if it does truly suck I'll just reread the original trilogy and wash the prequel from my mind. And now I can eat my words because I came out the other side of this read really liking the book and happy that I picked it up.
Following Snow was more interesting than I thought it could be, while he did get a bit of a sob story edit (hearing what his family and others went through during the war and losing his parents and the prestige of his families name), we also got to be in his mind the entire time and understanding how his thought process worked fleshed out the villain we know he becomes and never tries to excuse it. His back and forth about morality and ethics and love read genuine of a young adult on the cusp of the next chapter of their lives and trying to figure out the best path to provide them with a good future. I also especially enjoyed getting to know more about the behind the scenes of The Hunger Games and how they worked and what they looked like at this early stage in their history, how they differed from the Games we saw in the original series. Not to mention seeing the Games from the point of view of a watcher, a capitol member no less, and not a tribute in the games was a good way to keep that fresh for the readers.
My complaint or critique of the book comes in the length of it and that the third part doesn't take up enough room of the overall story. The first two parts I think could have been trimmed up, some subplots maybe even cut entirely, to give more room for the third part to be flushed out and given a better pacing so that the last, truly crucial, scenes of the book were built with a better tension and therefore gave a stronger impact. It moved too fast to really find the actions and the emotions as true as they could have been. Overall though I still had a much better time than anticipated and found myself always itching to get back to my time with the book so I could see where the story was going. Definitely happy I choose to pick this up and now I am excited to go see the movie when I can.
Following Snow was more interesting than I thought it could be, while he did get a bit of a sob story edit (hearing what his family and others went through during the war and losing his parents and the prestige of his families name), we also got to be in his mind the entire time and understanding how his thought process worked fleshed out the villain we know he becomes and never tries to excuse it. His back and forth about morality and ethics and love read genuine of a young adult on the cusp of the next chapter of their lives and trying to figure out the best path to provide them with a good future. I also especially enjoyed getting to know more about the behind the scenes of The Hunger Games and how they worked and what they looked like at this early stage in their history, how they differed from the Games we saw in the original series. Not to mention seeing the Games from the point of view of a watcher, a capitol member no less, and not a tribute in the games was a good way to keep that fresh for the readers.
My complaint or critique of the book comes in the length of it and that the third part doesn't take up enough room of the overall story. The first two parts I think could have been trimmed up, some subplots maybe even cut entirely, to give more room for the third part to be flushed out and given a better pacing so that the last, truly crucial, scenes of the book were built with a better tension and therefore gave a stronger impact. It moved too fast to really find the actions and the emotions as true as they could have been. Overall though I still had a much better time than anticipated and found myself always itching to get back to my time with the book so I could see where the story was going. Definitely happy I choose to pick this up and now I am excited to go see the movie when I can.