For my first full-length book review, I’ve decided to cover The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins; the latest addition to Panem universe and prequel to one of my favorite book series: The Hunger Games. I cannot even begin to describe my excitement when I heard this book was being released. The amount of time that passed between when I discovered it’s release date and when I pre-ordered the book was less than five minutes. My high-school self was THRILLED. Some of my favorite memories are attached to THG trilogy from everyone borrowing the next book from the people that owned them during mornings in the school cafeteria, everyone I know showing up to an open casting call at our local mall to be extras in the first film, to finally going to the movie release with my friends with our hair braided into the styles of each of the characters (check out the bottom of this post for a treat).
Also, as an aside, I’ve made it my mission to stop using receipts and napkins as bookmarks, so I bought some real ones and I absolutely love them! Two of them are featured in the image at the top of this post, so if you like them check out at The Flow Design on Etsy. I get no money from this, I’m just in love with these bookmarks and the seller sent the kindest note and coupon with my order, so I wanted to share my love and support!
But let’s just jump right into the review because that’s what you all are here for, right?
First Thoughts
When I started reading this book I decided to jot down all of my first impressions from the first 50 pages as a little teaser of what to expect without spoiling anything that happens later. So without further ado, here they are.
- I had no idea how difficult it would be to picture President Snow as an 18-year-old boy. I basically pictured him with white hair and bad breath running around a high school.
- The premise is super cool. The spark notes version is that Snow’s family lost everything in the war and his one chance to redeem his future and restore money/power to his family is doing a good job at being a mentor to a tribute in the hunger games and winning a scholarship to the best university in The Capitol. This is the first time mentors are being used, and it takes place 10 years after the war so the hunger games are still in the early years of development and The Capitol is very much struggling in the aftermath of the war.
- Snow seems interesting enough as a character so far, but I’m FAR more interested in learning more about the side characters.
- Some of the writing is a little odd. There’s a quote on page eight that says, “The cabbage began to boil, filling the kitchen with the smell of poverty.” I get where Collins was trying to go with the imagery here, but it just did not work for me AT ALL. I also think that so far Collins is doing a little too much telling rather than showing. I want to feel suspense and intrigue about the rest of the book, but Collins basically spells out Snow’s self-awareness of his fatal flaw on page seven. I was pretty disappointed at such an early admission. It changed the way I looked at every event throughout the book rather than letting my imagination run wild speculating about what Snow’s next step would be.
Final Thoughts and Impressions
I want to talk about how I truly feel about this book, but I also want to try my best to avoid any spoilers. So instead of focusing on plot points, I’m going to stick with overall themes, world-building, and character development in addition to my overall rating of the book at the end. If these things are your jam, you’ll love this review.
I think the thematic elements and world-building in this book are by far the best parts. In my eyes, they definitely out-perform the plot and character development.
Collins gives true depth to The Capitol in this book. Instead of the glamorous and shining view that we see in the original trilogy, we are shown The Capitol’s dark underbelly. The Capitol is still very much devastated from the war. We learn that its citizens were not safe from hardship in their ivory towers as we would be led to believe from the air of superiority seen 65 years later. Many people lost their lives and everything they owned. People were starving and scared. Some even resorted to cannibalism to feed themselves and their families as rations ran low and the money ran out. Many structures were still in disrepair although it had already been 10 years since the war ended. The portrayal of the hunger games themselves was amazing. The well-designed and commercialized hunger games that we know from the original trilogy did not exist. This early version was simplistic and cruel. The tributes were mistreated from the moment they were selected. They were treated like animals and many died before even reaching the arena. The games were televised but most people didn’t watch and didn’t care. Emotions were high among Capitol citizens. Many, especially the younger generation who were mentors of the tributes, weren’t convinced of the Capitol’s righteousness in hosting the games. They saw themselves in the district tributes. Many were the same age.
Snow’s story, and the story of the Capitol, is one where judgment and prejudice win when complacency and ignorance thrive. Many characters expressed doubt about the treatment of the tributes by the Capitol, and few fully believed that the hunger games were justified as punishment for the districts over the war. These reservations were concentrated in the small group of people who truly understood the magnitude of the Capitol’s indiscretions and mistreatment of the districts and the hunger games tributes. The majority remained ignorant of the Capitol elite’s true intentions of power and control over others. Not only do we see the level of tragedy that can happen when a population ignores the beginnings of horrible mistreatment, but we also get to see the development of Snow who represents the creation story of the people who are ultimately pulling the strings to take power and control for themselves. Snow could easily be miscategorized as a product of his circumstances, but over and over again he chooses to be manipulative and self-serving. He uses his circumstances to justify his behavior, but they aren’t ruling his decisions. His desire for money, power, and fame rule even when consequences are absent. It’s powerful stuff for a YA novel, but important nonetheless.
Dystopian novels often seem extreme in their portrayals of the human experience and future societies, but they typically touch on very real problems and warning signs in society as we know it. It’s easy as a reader to get lost in the dramatics of dystopian novels assuming that something so extreme could never happen in real life. While something like the hunger games seems very extreme, many of the moments that paved the way for the hunger games to exist and continue to grow into the sinister and commoditized event that we hear about in the original trilogy exist now. American society is plagued by the othering of certain groups of people like the Capitol treats the districts as others/less-than-human. Many people turn a blind eye to injustice and mistreatment, just as we see many of the characters do in this book. While we may not be headed toward the hunger games specifically, something equally as dark is closer than we may think, and that’s why I enjoyed the themes in this book so so much.
Let’s chat about the plot and character development. I think these two elements leave a lot to be desired. Snow was not a likable protagonist. He’s selfish and has few, if any, redeemable qualities. This makes sense given what we know about his future and completely appropriate. I would’ve been disappointed if Collins had attempted to redeem Snow with his past. I don’t want him to be redeemed. His assent to tyranny needs to be believable. But I think that having such an unlikeable protagonist demands that likable side-characters get adequate development to balance the scales a bit. I think Collins missed the mark on that point. Lucy Gray, Snow’s tribute, is unique, free-spirited, and quirky. Intended to balance Snow’s focus on propriety and traditional happiness/success, their pairing ultimately ended up feeling unrealistic and doomed from the beginning. Sejanus, my personal favorite character, had such interesting qualities and provided a voice of reason in the wake of the Capitol’s ruthlessness, but, he too, didn’t get the screen-time he deserved for most of the novel.
In terms of plot, the first half of the book dragged a bit and some of the scenes were a little too repetitive for me. I was eagerly anticipating some action and excitement, but simply got more visits to the zoo? The pace accelerated through the second half of the book which I greatly appreciated, and I quite enjoyed the ending of the novel. Given that, I’ll focus on something more positive. I absolutely LOVED how many easter eggs were in this book. Collins dropped in so many elements from the original trilogy that made my heart so happy to see. We learn the origins of so many of the hallmark songs and names from the original books and those were just the ones that I recognized. It’s been so long since I’ve read the original trilogy that I’m sure there were tons of fun references that went over my head, so there’s definitely a lot to look forward to about this book!
All-in-all I give this book: three stars 🌟 🌟🌟! While there were some parts I struggled to get through, there truly are some great gems hidden in the pages and the themes are so relevant to many of the injustices that currently plague the US. It’ll definitely make you think about the parallels between our society and theirs!
If you want to read this book for yourself, you can purchase the book at this link: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
If you’ve already finished reading: let me know in the comments what you thought! What was your favorite part of the book? Do you feel differently about something that I said? Do you have a recommendation for my next book review? I want to know it all! <3
And…. as always here’s the link to my Goodreads account if you’d like to keep up with what I’m currently reading or are interested in finding book recommendations!
Much love,
Taylor
As promised, here’s a photo of my friends and me from high school with our hair braided as hunger games characters going to see the first movie. Apologies to everyone in this photo for the extra embarrassment. We tried haha.
