The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
A Spoiler-Free Review
“Snow lands on top.”
Synopsis
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.
Recommended? Yes (See Review Below)
Rating? 2 out of 5
Review
“May the odds be ever in your favor!” It has been a while since we were introduced to those words in the original “The Hunger Games.” They were of course Spoken within the world of Panem, the world built by Suzanne Collins, where our minds were transported to in those first novels.
The suspense, action, and adventure of “The Games” and the participating “Tributes” kept us turning pages and rooting for our favorite characters. You couldn’t help but feel the full spectrum of emotions around the characters due to the fantastic job Collins did at character development. I thoroughly enjoyed those three novels and they have been re-read since my initial read.
Katniss Everdeen as a lead female protagonist was certainly the center of attention, but there was also a lot of wonder around Panem’s Government Leader, President Coriolanus Snow. I know I specifically wanted to understand more about the history of Panem and how it became what it is both Politically and Culturally during the time period detailed in the original novels.
So, I was particularly excited when this Novel was announced with the story setting being centered around the young President Snow. I was hoping for an interesting read that provided insight on the President’s upbringing and hopefully some explanation on the tensions and political climate between “The Districts” and “The Capitol”.
Unfortunately, I have to say that this novel was not what I expected. The story certainly centers around a young Coriolanus Snow, with some action and suspense thrown in due to the occurrence of the hunger games. But, I found this novel very slow on the uptake and I really had to push through to continue wanting to read through the first 2/3rds of the novel. However, things did pick up in the final third of this book.
While things picked up, I felt that it began to “over-rotate” and the story’s plot points started to pile up very quickly and time compressed. In my mind once the hunger games’ telling was over, the novel just simply “unraveled.” I was not a fan of the pacing, and felt less time spent recounting the story of the games and more time covering a greater depth of Snow’s career and history would have been more interesting.
Would I recommend this book to those fans of the Hunger Games Universe? Yes.
Am I pushing for folks to upend their TBRs and read this next before anything else? No.
This novel certainly doesn’t take anything away for me from the experience of the Hunger Games universe, but it also doesn’t fill any missing pieces. The fact that it is a quicker read is certainly a positive.