Book Review - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games # 0)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: Dystopian/ Young Adult/ Reread/ Science Fiction
Published: 2020
 
Description: It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
 
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment to mentoring the female tribute from District twelve, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined – every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
 
Review: This is the first book in the Hunger Games series that I haven’t read before. In “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”, we meet a young Coriolanus Snow, before becoming the relentless President of Panem that we know from the original trilogy. It takes place 64 years before “The Hunger Games”, at the start of the 10^th annual Hunger Games.
 
It’s a villain origin story and we follow it through Coriolanus Snow’s perspective. How was het as an eighteen-year-old? What made him into the merciless President that we know so well?
 
You learn how certain elements of the Hunger Games, that we already knew about from the original trilogy, were introduced in this prequel. In the earlies stage of the games, things were much more primitive. Tributes were thrown into a cage right after they were chosen at the reaping, and treated poorly. They were starving them and some of the tributes wouldn’t even make it to the arena.
 
When we enter the Hunger Games, we see it from a different perspective. We see what Snow sees, because he’s the main character and not one of the tributes. That is also interesting.
 
I don’t think we’re meant to feel any sympathy for Snow, especially because we know what he would do in the future. Even though Snow did know hunger, poverty and love in his younger years, you can already see that he has certain priorities. He really loves to be loved and doesn’t want anyone to know that his family is not rich anymore as when his parents were still alive.
 
The best part of the book was the middle, the Hunger Games. Before and after that I was a bit bored at times. Mainly because I didn’t really care about Lucy Gray Baird or about her relationship with Coriolanus. I felt no connection to either of them.
Although I do believe that this villain origin story is interesting to tell, I expected more from it. I don’t think that what happened to Coriolanus in this book was enough for him to turn out as evil as he did. I enjoyed it enough, but I will probably not ever reread this.
 
Rating: 3/ 5