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

If you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy then you’ll enjoy this book. It follows the story of President Snow from his younger years. Definitely filled in some story line info for the trilogy. It’s obviously dark in theme like the trilogy so be prepared!

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kaylaswhitmore's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Suzanne Collins has done it again. Even knowing exactly how Snow turns out….it was still all too easy to be sucked into his POV. Which is exactly the point Collins is trying to make, I suppose. She inserted just enough little tidbits of questionable internal dialogue moments to keep me skeptical of his thought process and morality, but even with those moments I found myself wishing against all odds that he would make the "right" choices. That, combined with the truly nauseating cruelty of the Capitol was enough for me to eagerly await the eventual revolution. Collins’ pacing was near perfect imho, with perhaps a bit of slowness in the beginning as she set her tale up for its ultimate conclusion. And by the end, I found myself even wishing for more information about how Snow becomes President, how he eventually betrays Tigris, what happens to the Covey, etc.

Even as I was left longing to know what happened to Lucy Gray, I simultaneously was intrigued by the mystery of it all and how poetically it sets the stage for Katniss' introduction.

All in all, any critiques I have for the book pale in comparison to how thoroughly I enjoyed this foray into Snow's past. Hoping she continues to expand this world with perhaps a book on Hatmitch or even Joanna! We shall see!

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kkalicky94's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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chrisljm's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense 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

3.0

528 pages of Snow being a loser.

Going to expand on my review for the sake of explaining that I don't dislike this book. I just dislike losers. I liked that Suzanne Collins gave us a prequel and gave background to the games and how it essentially all started, but I just wasn't too invested in the story because I never cared to learn more about Snow's life.

I think it's fair that other readers didn't enjoy this book because it does get a bit long and the last third does drag, but I think the people who see this book as an attempt to sympathize Snow as a villain just doesn't understand Suzanne Collins or what she wrote. We see how Snow had a tough childhood, being poor and living through war, but he is very much still cruel and narcissistic. There is in no way for this book to be taken as an attempt to get you on Snow's side.

While I personally didn't give a fuck about Snow's backstory, I think this is worth reading if you want insight on how the modern version of the games came to be. In my opinion it's less about Snow and more of an origin story to the Panem we see in The Hunger Games trilogy, and I think the book is more enjoyable if you read it with this in mind.

I also want to say that the dislike this book gets makes me firm on my stance in hating when people ask for more books on the other Hunger Game years. We have all we need to know from the trilogy. It's unnecessary and just another way for people to thoughtlessly consume media. The Hunger Games portion of this book was very uncomfortable to read, especially since I already sat through the cruelty of the games twice for the trilogy. If we were to read anymore of the games, it would just become cruelty for entertainment, which literally goes against the theme of the series.

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haley_reads_books's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I really liked the first half of this book, but I felt it dragged on after the games until the last few chapters which held so many plot twists I didn’t see coming at all. I can’t wait to see how the movie turns out!!

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wilamina's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

If you're picking this book up after reading the hunger games trilogy, then honestly I'd say I not worth it. Look up the basic plot and leave it at that because this book does not live up to the emotional wonders that the hunger games have. It feels like all the colour was stripped out. The best part of all the hunger games books are the actual games right? Because they're deeply emotional and everyone is running on adrenaline and a willingness to kill. But in these hunger games, barely anything happens. It's dragged on for way too long. everytime a character dies its just bland, like it's narrated by snow watching it on tv, and it reads like watching a grainy video with no sound as a character stand another then moves on. The whole thing feels like security footage being played for half the book. Then 2 thirds kf the way in it feels like the entire plot of the book is abandoned (no spoilers just look as the section title). The only redeeming factor I'd say would be knowing a little more about what makes snow tick, and why it hates 12 so much. But like I said, just look it up, don't bother going through all 517 pages. The writing style is also very elegant, but that can't make up for bland characters and lack of a cohesive plot line. It wasn't a horrible book, and the idea to write about snow was definitely a good one, but Collins could have executed it much better.

if you ask me, I think some interesting stuff could have happened if snow had gotten stuck in the arena, there he could have maybe became part of the games, and it would definitely have amped up the plot and give the hunger games fans much more if what they loved about the series in the first place. There's a reason many people think the series went down hill after catching fire, it's that the environment the games make is so tense that it's almost impossible to write a dry plot.

So in conclusion, the ballad of songbirds and snakes was annoying average, with few redeeming factors to warrant it a slightly higher grade, but without it's association with the hunger games, it would probably never have been shelved.

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mscalls's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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