1.5.2026 | Monday

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Item: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Rating: 5
Author: Kim

category: Book Reviews

tag(s): young adult

0 Comments

book notes

title: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
author: Suzanne Collins
series: The Hunger Games #0
published: 5.19.2020
publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: bought
genre(s): dystopian
pages: 541
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | BookBub | BookHype | StoryGraph | Goodreads
rating:

| series rating:

the blurb

Ambition will fuel him.
Competition will drive him.
But power has its price.

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 of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, 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.

a few notes

❗trigger warnings: ❗violence

POV: 3rd person
setting: Panem (district 12, Capitol)
keywords/phrases: war, betrayal, conflict
tropes: totalitarian government, strict social castes, struggle to survive
spice: 0/5
language: 0/5

awards:

Geffen Award for Best Translated Science Fiction Book (2020)
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2019)
Beste Boek voor Jongeren Nominee for Vertaald (2020)

my review

Compared to the original Hunger Games trilogy, this book has a very different feel. But how could it not be, centered as it was on the backstory of President Snow? Katniss is a protagonist that readers feel for, a perhaps imperfect person but one who garners compassion and care. Snow as a protagonist is somehow still the villain most of the time. That’s a delicate balance to maintain, but the author does so beautifully.

To know Snow in his younger years gives a much better understanding of the man he is in the main trilogy. We see him living in the Capitol in the post-war era, not long after the war ended. The Capitol is but a shade of what it is in Katniss’ time, even Snow living in near destitution. In contrast to the man he becomes, it’s eye-opening to see that there is more to him than the cruelty he embodies. In his youth, he’s clearly consumed by the once power of his family, consumed with the Snow family name. It’s made him ruthlessly ambitious, very entitled, and incredibly arrogant. Dangerous qualities when combined with a sharp intelligence. But even with these faults, he’s not yet the man he becomes. In TBoSaS, he still has some humanity in him… the capacity to love and care for his family, the capacity for friendship, the capacity to love, even the ability to sacrifice for others. But we also see all that begin to fade, the precursor to the man in power later.

The complacency that Capitol citizens feel about the Games is still in the early stages, but you can see it beginning to form. It was also fascinating to learn more about the specifics behind the creation of the Games, the twisted minds and reasoning behind them.

I definitely can understand why some Hunger Games fans might not like this, but for me, the negatives really made the story more interesting for me. If Snow had been portrayed as a kinder, more compassionate person, it would have felt like the origin story of a different character. I respected the reality that he was never that person, even if he, at least for a time, was not the man he later becomes.

About Suzanne Collins

Since 1991, Suzanne Collins has been busy writing for children’s television. She has worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. She also co-wrote the critically acclaimed Rankin/Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! Most recently she was the Head Writer for Scholastic Entertainment’s Clifford’s Puppy Days.

While working on a Kids WB show called Generation O! she met children’s author James Proimos, who talked her into giving children’s books a try.

Thinking one day about Alice in Wonderland, she was struck by how pastoral the setting must seem to kids who, like her own, lived in urban surroundings. In New York City, you’re much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you’re not going to find a tea party. What you might find…? Well, that’s the story of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in her five-part series, The Underland Chronicles. Suzanne also has a rhyming picture book illustrated by Mike Lester entitled When Charlie McButton Lost Power.

She currently lives in Connecticut with her family and a pair of feral kittens they adopted from their backyard.

Website | Goodreads | Bookhype | Amazon