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

Not as good as the original trilogy, but a good read regardless. I think my biggest issues are with the fact that its central character is someone we already know from the future. I

t seems like Collins had to go back on quite a bit in order to make this narrative fit in with what she already told us in the original trilogy.

I’d say that some other issues with this book are that most of the characters are just…flat. Dr. Gaul with her ridiculous nursery rhymes is too cartoonish of a villain, Lucy Gray is a manic pixie dream girl (which on the one hand makes sense because we’re seeing her from Snow’s POV, but that doesn’t make her any less grating), the rest of the Covey and their weird country bumpkin way of life are equally as grating and Snow himself has zero shades of gray. He’s awful all the way through (I’ll get back to this).

The most interesting characters by far are Sejanus Plinth and Dean Highbottom, both of whom I kind of wish had been the POV characters for this prequel.

BUT I will say that in terms of politics and big picture ideas, this book is way more ambitious than the original trilogy. Yes, Snow is a bit one note but I *do* actually appreciate that. He’s a fascist, point blank. He’s an elitist bigot whose family has fallen on hard luck but we don’t ever have to feel sympathy for him because he STILL clings to that bigotry even though it’s glaringly obvious that The Capitol is to blame for his family’s trauma. It’s also VERY interesting that Collins doesn’t even attempt to hide the links between fascism and misogyny.

Spoiler

Let’s talk real world for a second and how commonplace it is for alt-right young men to be drawn to their worldviews because of an innate sense of entitlement not only with wealth and the economy but with women as well. A big part of fascism is controlling women. It’s never a surprise when an alt-right extremist has a history of domestic violence. Never.

And Collins making it abundantly obvious that Coriolanus doesn’t truly LOVE Lucy Gray but seeks to own and possess her is actually really great. There’s no love story here. We know Lucy Gray is doomed from the moment she’s in his clutches. He wouldn’t have done ANYTHING for her if he didn’t want to fuck her so badly tbh. This was so obviously going to end one way and I’m glad that Collins didn’t chicken out and went for it and avoided giving him a change of heart although I wish she wasn’t so ambiguous with it.

The ending as a whole was another issue for me. It felt a bit rushed and convoluted and I wish Snow’s meeting with Highbottom was stretched out just a little more as opposed to stuffed into the epilogue.

All in all though, this was a solid read and I’m sure I’ll be seeing the movie in the Fall. I’m curious if Collins will be expanding even further on this world or not…

Content Warnings

ailerua's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

ellaticonstellation's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Spoiler

I had high hopes for this because I loved the trilogy and I was curious about President Snow's origin story. The story started strong but went downhill from there and I was so disappointed. Even the romance part didn't save it that made me sad because Coriolanus and Lucy Gray were so cute, but yeah, it didn't work well. All I could say was that at an early age, the villain tendency was apparent. LG and her disappearing act must be a poetic way of her way out, but even that, I hated. I love music, but I didn't like the lyrics in this book (except for the song dedicated to Coryo.) I liked the twist that Coriolanus' dad stole the idea of the Hunger Games from his friend and passed it on as his own. It was evil and gutsy. But, tbh, there were a lot of times that I want to DNF this because I was so bored. I guess, the third POV was a mistake as well. The saving grace of all this chaos was the narrator of the audiobook companion, Santino Fontana. He's a great narrator. You're an awesome writer, Suzanne, I devoured the trilogy, but this wasn't for me. I'm sorry.

Content Warnings

nellsir's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense

Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

aliyas_encanto's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

4.75

Ties so many questions and stories from the original series together in the most perfectly wretched bow. The development of Snow as a "villain" is a story so engaging I could see myself reading again and again. Also, my favorite part of the story were the songs which I felt really encapsulated so much of this character-driven book.

Content Warnings

seren's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

More...