The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A prequel to The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes chronicles Coriolanus Snow’s rise to power. It all starts with the tenth annual Hunger Games. Coriolanus and his classmates at the Academy in the Capitol have been assigned tributes from the districts of Panem to mentor in the Games. The Hunger Games were created after Panem’s — what used to be North America — civil war as a way to keep the 12 districts of the country in check and ensure that there wouldn’t be another rebellion. A girl and a boy are chosen from each of the districts to compete against each other in an arena. The last tribute standing wins the Games.

Coriolanus Snow comes from an old money family in the Capitol. During the civil war, however, the Snow family lost everything, so now they — Coriolanus, his cousin Tigris, and their grandmother — have to keep up the façade that everything is fine. The only way for Coriolanus to improve his status in society is to win the Games. So when he’s assigned one the district 12 tributes, a girl named Lucy Gray Baird, he’s devastated. District 12 is the coal mining district; its residents are poor and therefore therefore their tributes have historically had a slim chance of winning the Games. But he’s determined to do everything in his power to help her win.

This book definitely had a slower pace than the Hunger Games trilogy. That’s probably because it’s not from the point of view of someone competing in the Games, but from the point of view of a spectator. However, what the book lacks in excitement, it makes up for with world building. Or at least world expansion. Collins finally peels back the curtain to give her audience a glimpse of what life is like in the Capitol. The citizens are privileged, to be sure, but they still have their own struggles. For Coriolanus, there’s a very fine he has to navigate between standing up for what he thinks is right and preserving the status quo to gain power.

It’s a line that takes him all the way to the ending. An ending so unsatisfying that the feeling the reader comes away with can only be described as a major let down. That’s not saying that the book is bad, just different. And completely unpredictable. It’ll be interesting to see how The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is adapted into a movie later this year.