Review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Let’s time-travel to the year 2012 and the world is raving about none other than Katniss Everdeen. I remember being in elementary school, begging my mother to let me dress up as her for my birthday. Now it’s over ten years later and I’m still just as excited for the new movie as I was back then. Having recently finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes it felt only right to review it before the movie hits theaters.

We’re transported back to the world of war and the games, except this time it’s only a few years after the original war. Coriolanus  Snow lost everything to the war, his parents, his reputation, and his wealth. Due to his family’s increasing debt, he must find a way to pay for university next fall. With his high acadmeic achievments Corniolanus is chosen to mentor one of the tributes for this year’s games. Soon he realizes if he can get her to win, he can also win the scholarship for university given each year to one student. Everything would fall into place, except his tribute is the girl from District 12, Lucy Gray and he’s already falling in love with her.

I personally loved this book, it had me hooked from the premise. However, I noticed it’s more of a character study than anything else. We follow Snow, the future president of Panem. We already know how he ends up and what he ends up believing due to his importance in the original trilogy, so this book doesn’t really add anything super new. It does though, tell us how Snow became who is later on. It gives us more context of why he turns ‘evil’, and allows the games to continue. I love character studies and find them usually more interesting than intense plot. Snow is an especially interesting character as he yes, is a product of his environment. But as the book progresses we can see how much his morals fall apart and darken.

I also thought having him fall in love was an interesting choice. It’s something that helps us as readers see his humanity and see him as real. Before he was just a dooming dark figure and overarching antagonist. In the original series all he wanted was to destroy Katniss. However, after reading this, some of the things he had said made me see him as more interesting, even in the original books. To me Snow is a very complicated character, who does right by what he believes, even if those beliefs are morbid.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I don’t think it is a necessary read. If you loved the original trilogy and cannot get enough of Panem then I would recommend it. However, if you just saw the movies and enjoyed them, but didn’t love them. I would just wait for November 17th. This book does not add much more to the already established story.