The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins rounded up to 3 stars

[Karin]

While this is a less than stellar addition to the Hunger Games series, I have mixed feelings on it. I have read some reviews that say that we learn nothing new about Snow, but I think we do. We get a bit more understanding of what pushed him over the edge into the level of darkness he reached.
Aside from growing up during the war, losing his parents and then living in poverty but wanting to keep his name, there were people grooming him and pushing him in certain directions. There are some other things that I won't go into. Ultimately, of course, he makes some of these decisions himself, but one can't help but wonder if he would have been less cruel and less prone to killing later, etc, had his childhood and teen years been different.

It is quite different than the Hunger Games, which I think is partly why people are disappointed, but given that it is about the future President Snow, one can't be too surprised. There were a few surprises in this book.

As for the audiobook narrator, he was NOT nearly as good as the woman who narrated the first three, and was, in fact, rather poor, like when ever he narrated the words "he said" he made emphasized in a way they should not be. Of course it needed to be a male narrator, but not this one! However, I am rounding this up to 3 stars.

One of the things I don't think the publishers paid enough heed to is that one of the things that makes the Hunger Games good and bearable is the rising of Katniss to be the figurehead to help rouse enough people to lead a successful revolution. If you take someone like her away, and only show how it got even worse, etc, then it is torturous. The best book of the series, to me, is the very first one, with the second a close runner up. But even the third one, which I didn't think was quite as good managed to be rounded up to 4 stars for me.

Publishers and author, take heed--time for an entirely new series not hashed out prequels.

[Joi]

I want to read this, but I'm also pretty satisfied with the Hunger Games as a series- and don't really think it needs/needed any more additional stories or books.

[Karin]

Joi wrote: "I want to read this, but I'm also pretty satisfied with the Hunger Games as a series- and don't really think it needs/needed any more additional stories or books."

My eldest liked it better than I did. The narrator really dragged the score down, but she read it in print. I forgot to put in my review what a horrible job he did when reading lyrics. First of all, I think lyrics should be sung in a book when they are being sung in the story, but even if not, he was abysmal at that part of it.

Without that it would have been a full 3 stars, BUT you don't need to read this unless you want to know more of how he knew so much about District 12.