Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) Suzanne Collins

    

Print Length: 541 pages

Publisher: Scholastic Press (May 19, 2020)

From Goodreads.com: It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, 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.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

After owning this book for several years now, I finally got around to reading it and man.... I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. And to be fair, I had seen the movie before reading the book, and to be honest there were some things in the book (both that happened in the arena and out of it) that I wish the movie would have kept, but overall I feel like the book shined a better light on what drove Coriolanus Snow; on his innermost thoughts and motivations. But that is likely due to the fact that it is told from his point-of-view. 

And what a point-of-view that is. 

Throughout this book I found it hard to like Snow. NOT because I knew the man he would become, but because more often than not he simply came across as whiny and hypocritical. Yes, he can be charming when he wants something. Yes he is definitely cunning and intelligent. But good Lord, the constant internal whining was tiring. When he wasn't thinking about the loss of his family fortunes and the resulting poverty they were forced to live in (and the food they had or  didn't have), he was complaining about literally everyone around him. He looked down upon the Plinth family at every turn (and I will get to Sejanus in a second), while still gorging himself on the food that "Ma Plinth" sent him. I get it, he's a sociopath. But he's still obnoxious and I expected more. 

Then we have good ole Sejanus Plinth, the martyr. I get what he was meant to be. He was everything Coriolanus was not. He was empathetic to the districts and their plights, having been born in district 2. He wanted to be the better person, to not only do good, but to help stop the people from suffering. He stood up to the capital against the games at every turn, but did so in a way that showed he was too emotional about it all. And then he went to District 12 and he really spiraled out of control. And when Coriolanus tried to point out that this path was not one that should be taken (and even knowing how he was linked to Coriolanus as being as close as brothers and how much Coriolanus had already risked for him), Sejanus persisted. And honestly, when things came to a head what had he been expecting? 

Throughout most of this story I will admit to being bored. There was no sense of urgency. Even the games themselves were boring (which is something I am glad the movies omitted).  I'm still confused about that scene in the cabin though. Why did Lucy Gray think she was in danger just because he found those guns? How did she figure out that Coriolanus  had a hand Sejanus' death? As for the "third person" he killed, he could have admitted to her that it was Sejanus. I mean come on he was smart enough for everything else, but he wasn't smart enough to say that he had known about the rebel plan and had tried to talk him out of it, but then spun it to seem like maybe he hadn't done enough so he carried the guilt of him being hung? 

I definitely think this book could have benefited from a dual point-of-view so that we could get to see/hear what Lucy Gray was going through. Not only in the arena and her first meetings with her mentor, but also after. How she adjusted back to life in District 12. How she went from trusting Coriolanus  to knowing that he was going to kill her. 

I still have questions, but overall I am happy to have been able to witness the downfall of Coriolanus Snow. Because let's face it, if he hadn't had to mentor Lucy Gray, things might have turned out differently for the future of Panem altogether.