Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Power corrodes.
But power feeds you and claims you, and young Coriolanus Snow knows this.

Even though an incredibly impactful and acclaimed trilogy like the Hunger Games seemed to be self-contained, with no need for any spin-offs, the prequel starring the young Coriolanus Snow manages to establish itself as a work of exceptional craftsmanship, perhaps even surpassing the original trilogy.

Little can be said about Suzanne Collins' style, which remains as sublime as ever and makes the whole work fluent and engrossing.
And yet the great highlight of the book is perhaps not simply the writing style, but rather the themes dealt with and the characters proposed.

In fact, the author does not merely perform a careful social commentary on the dangers of power and how difficult it can be to find a functional political system for the entire community (note the various references to political philosophy, especially from the Enlightenment era, with clear references to Rousseau and the state of nature), but also surgically analyses the ubiquitous class differences within any society, and what these entail.
A social contract is a possible means to avoid chaos, but it is at the same time an instrument of control, which allows the avoidance of a catastrophic state of destruction (whether this corresponds to the natural state of human beings is hard to say) but at the same time necessarily entails a guarantee as well as a limitation of freedom, and an inherent social hierarchy.
It is perhaps for this very reason that the work manages to stand out even above the original trilogy: it does not merely explore the reality and damages of war as such (although the content of the original saga is still exceptionally written and extremely interesting), but investigates the causes of war, and consequently of every human conflict in itself, in a more thorough and accurate analysis, not only kinematic (how?), but even highly dynamic (why?).
The transformation of Coriolanus is in this sense fundamental:

if he is initially interested in gaining power at any cost, while in a way opposing against Capitol City (by not respecting the rules of the Hunger Games), through his own experience as a peacekeeper (face to face with the reality he has always defined as 'savage' and with the cruelty of Capitol City, in front of which he nevertheless remains blind) and the tragic influence of Dr. Gaul, in the final epilogue Coriolanus becomes the prototype of the President Snow that we were able to observe in the original trilogy.
But the attainment of this goal, as Katniss later proves (even though Coriolanus is unaware of this until the last moment, fuelled by his hunger for power and the anger he harbours against himself for the way things ended with Lucy Gray) actually amounts to a miserable surrender: Snow becomes the most powerful man in Capitol City but this involves becoming a mere cog; his power is not real, no matter how tangible it may seem, it just makes him a founding element of a sick society, to which he merely belongs but which he cannot really control (the ability to modify and enact the Hunger Games remains more similar to a simple act of revenge and a demonstration of power, which follows from the mental washing to which Coriolanus, actually subjugated, has been subjected by Dr Gaul and the society in which he lives).
Moreover, the initial reasons why Coriolanus fought to win and gain power were merely an attempt to save himself and his family and survive, against a tormented childhood, against his family's poor economic conditions and against real hunger.
Also of note, the moment when Coriolanus returns from the woods after abandoning/killing Lucy Gray. Among his personal belongings, his mother's photographs and powder compact are thrown away, while his father's compass is kept.
This is a clear hint to the estrangement that Coriolanus imposes on himself, not only from Lucy Gray and love as such, but from his mother's/feminine mental side and thus entirely from his emotional side, leaving room only for a cold and dirty rationality, characteristic of his father, which makes him a perfect automaton for fomenting war, disinterested in humanity as such and merely producing new victims in a catastrophic process of (self-) destruction.

Coriolanus Snow is not the real villain of the story, but simply the perfect product of an inhuman and guilty society.

The characterisation of Lucy Gray (as well as that of the Coveys and the other secondary characters) is also excellent.

With her desperate search for freedom, beyond society and Capitol City - in the hope therefore of the existence of a possible peaceful state of nature - she contrasts with the mentality of the protagonist, who is subjugated by the irrevocable necessity of a social contract to 'dominate chaos' and is thus led to fight against perhaps the one true and only love of his life.
For while Lucy Gray runs away, probably fuelled by fear and not so much by revenge, Coriolanus definitively brands his love for her as a weakness and attempts to kill her, even though he is deep down aware that he loves her and acknowledges the life she could have offered him, but in the end he is led to suppress this desire, devoured by a hunger for power.

Excellent additions are also the various songs, which make clear the nature of the Coveys and the personality of Lucy Gray Baird, who unlike Katniss is not so much a hunter obliged to perform, but more a performer obliged to show herself as a hunter in the Games.
Finally, it is also essential to analyse, at least in a small way, the character of Sejanus Plinth, perhaps the only true hero of the story (

but as his death shows, even heroes suffocate and collapse to the ground deceased against the despotic government of Capitol City

). A character who was naive, yes, but still was fuelled by a real desire to change things, so much so that he directly opposes the Hunger Games and Capitol City itself, which already makes us think in some way of Katniss and all the future rebels of District 13. And yet even in his innocence and hunger for justice, Sejanus remains at heart a part of the system, as Coriolanus reminds him

: Sejanus' father only got rich thanks to the war, and it is thanks to this that Sejanus was able to avoid the Hunger Games and go to Capitol City

: like it or not, the starting conditions, though impossible to decide, nevertheless place us on one rung or another of the ladder, victims or privileged it doesn't matter.
We're still part of the great social machinery, whether it is corrupted or functional.

To conclude, "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes" presents itself as a work constructed with extreme care and refinement. It is not a simple young adult, but a book worthy of a certain consideration, not only for the author's writing style or for the careful characterisation of the characters, but also and above all for the reflection on themes that are still extremely topical and important even nowadays.
It is therefore fair to say, that Suzanne Collins' pen, incredible but true, has produced a new masterpiece, better even than any of her previous works.

You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does.

You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It's a lot to take in all at once, but it's essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about that you learned tonight.

Content Warnings

lj_sophia's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow. This was a much more complex story than that of the original Hunger Games trilogy. It's violent, dark, compelling, and a wonderful way to set up Katniss's story.

Content Warnings

elspethmigliore's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated

5.0

this was INSANE. the perfect way to begin the series. it literally sets up the latter books in the most beautiful way im in awe.

at first, i shipped lucy and snow SO HARD bc like obviously. but then i kept reading and i realized how they were so different and how power-hungry snow is that i knew it couldn’t work. and i’m glad it didnt. i dont think either of them deserve to be stuck with the other, despite how evil snow becomes. he’s good deep down, but whats engrained in him could never leave. i wish they had a better goodbye, but also i think it was the most clever way to end their story.

i cannot get over how they ended. what incredible revenge they had on each other. and i genuinely cannot get over how perfectly this sets up for the trilogy.

it’s so eerie to know how in control the capitol is with every situation, but it makes for an even more satisfying end when it comes to the later trilogy. lucy sets up for katniss’s character perfectly.

also, i know when i watch the movie im gonna ship them so hard bc tom blyth is so hot, but i still stand by what i said.

✅ ONE HUNDRED PERCENT WILL BE REREADING THIS WAS INSANE

Content Warnings

alex_e_liddiard's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

mconroy9137's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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