muckl3t83 's review for:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

4.25

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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This was a good prequel. Bad guys are always fun to read about. I thought this story added a lot of interesting detail to the universe. These grittier hunger games made a bit more sense to me in this book then the over-the top games in the original. I see now how they became that way. 

The third act was a bit long, a lot of stuff could’ve been cut without losing anything vital to the story. In terms of the “romance”,

I did not understand how Lucy fell for him. I assumed through the whole book she was tricking him and would betray him but turned out she actually did like him and he betrayed her instead? Made no sense to me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism