The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games)

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It is a steep challenge to write a book whose hero is, everyone knows, destined to become deeply evil. Do we want to hear -- now, after we know the endgame -- that the young Voldemort was unfairly saddled with a demerit in class or that the adolescent Sauron fretted because he had to wear hand-me-down clothes? Yes, please." -- New York Times The writing has improved immeasurably too, when compared to Collins previous novels. On a base level the story is simple, yet you can delve a lot deeper into the philosophy of human nature, war and the constructs of political dominance and the effect on society. Why do the Hunger Games persist? What is their purpose and what are the consequences for the people who live in the Capitol and districts? I found it thought provoking. Snow's family is bankrupt nobility, a contrast with his school rival, Sejanus, who's family is nouveau riche.

I like that Snow is not a born sociopath. He is bright but unlikeable, ambitious, resentful, conceited and very entitled, with capacity for manipulation and ruthlessness. He is slippery like the titular snakes. But he has some humanity in him - capacity for friendship, capacity for love, capacity to care and even a degree of sacrifice. The novel’s 18-year-old protagonist, Coriolanus comes from a wealthy Capitol family. However, his father, Crassus Snow, lost his munitions empire in the war with the rebels and died, along with Coriolanus’s mother. Coriolanus…Its astonishing that I've managed to avoid spoilers for 3 years. All I'm hoping for is that Collins doesn't give Snow a redemption arc. Let me hate him in peace

There are failures of every type in this novel. Snow's evolution is convoluted, drawn out, poorly paced, and entirely too much time is spent on lingering on his sob stories of poverty, school demerits and cabbage soup. His inner world is neither explained well nor is it interesting. This is not a successful villain origin tale. You will never convince me that it is. Too many new characters are introduced, but none of them are memorable. There is not one person of Haymitch's caliber, or Cinna’s, or Effie's. There is an attempt to show the dawn and messiness of the early Hunger Games, with all the gore and DYI-horror, but it's diluted by the wrong perspective, weird Capitol apologia and a BIG BAD, super-boring first game maker villain. There is a romance that it totally unbelievable and an incomprehensible joke. Hunger Games' Prequel Novel From Suzanne Collins Coming in 2020, Lionsgate in Talks For Movie". Deadline. June 17, 2019 . Retrieved August 15, 2019. The extra .5 I gave this book was that it's not horribly written and there are a few "easter eggs" for things in the original trilogy, how things got to be the way they are, etc. But I still don't care about those things and could have done without learning them.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes delivers a mesmerizing look into the life of Coriolanus Snow and the root causes of his villainous behavior. Collins once again proves that she is a master of building a fascinating world around complex characters who must grapple with the complications of chaos and control and their effects on human nature." -- The Associated Press