From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)

Suzanne Collins

Start date: July 5, 2020

Finish date: August 1, 2020

Why we're reading this: It came out recently and the first reviews were devastating, is it really that bad, or are people just di…more
[close] It came out recently and the first reviews were devastating, is it really that bad, or are people just disappoined it wasn't about Katniss?

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Aug 29, 2020 Kandice rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was/am a rabid fan of The Hunger Games. I firmly believe the first should have ended with Katniss and Peeta eating the berries as the ultimate “F you!” to the Capitol, but completely understand why Collins, and probably her publishers, would prefer to give us a trilogy. Dystopic futures are the setting of some of my favorite books, and I often don’t care how we got there, just what’s happening in the story. Having said that, I am also usually happy to get a backstory, even well after the origi I was/am a rabid fan of The Hunger Games. I firmly believe the first should have ended with Katniss and Peeta eating the berries as the ultimate “F you!” to the Capitol, but completely understand why Collins, and probably her publishers, would prefer to give us a trilogy. Dystopic futures are the setting of some of my favorite books, and I often don’t care how we got there, just what’s happening in the story. Having said that, I am also usually happy to get a backstory, even well after the original series is over. Voila! Along comes A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

That title. It’s perfect. I really, really loved the title right when it was announced. The cover art is gorgeous and fits right in with everything we already have from the series. After reading the book I have come to appreciate the title even more. It’s even more perfect if that is possible.

This is the story of Coriolanus, Coryo, Snow. The book begins with the tenth annual Hunger Games and we get to see not only how they developed into the glorious, albeit disgusting, spectacle Collins gave us originally. We see their development along with Snow’s who is about 18 at this time. Snow and other top students in his class are asked to mentor tributes, a role we as readers are familiar with, but which is brand new here.

The first two-thirds of the book are dedicated to the games and I enjoyed that portion of the tale immensely. There were interesting characters, we get to see the Capitol in a new light, and we even see the underpinnings of that society at its lowest.

Collins lost me in the final third of the book. The games are over and we see how Snow, who has fallen about as low as possible for a boy from the Capitol to fall, rises up from the ashes of his despair. I just didn’t care. I didn’t like Snow. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I didn’t empathize or sympathize with him in any way, shape, or form. The only thing I appreciated about him as a character was his job as the conduit to learning about the characters I did like.

By the very end of the book, I graduated from simple dislike to actually loathing Snow, and I guess that’s exactly what Collins wanted, but I feel it took her way too long to get me there. I wish she had done so alongside the conclusion of the games because I just didn’t want to “be with” Snow that long. ...more

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