Reviews tagging 'Trafficking'

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

25 reviews

annorabrady's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

When I heard the announcement of this book, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of following President Snow as a youth because I feared it might have taken the route of making him a sympathetic villain like many prequels following villains do. I was pleasantly surprised that the story didn't go that direction. However, it made it hard for me to engage with his story. Most of my attention, instead, went to the stories of the characters around him. I almost wish it had been a story from the POV of a character who was close to him but wasn't him. Someone who could witness his growth into villainy without being the villain themselves. 

That isn't to say that Suzanne Collins did a bad job with this POV. It was really well done. I'm just not a fan of following someone grow into the level of villainy we see in the original books and wearing that growth like a badge of honor. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Murder

sophie42's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Sexism, Grief, and Toxic friendship

jjpope's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Minor: Abandonment

elizlizabeth's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I'm a huge Hunger Games fan, and I really wanted to like this book but honestly it felt endless.

The minute Corolianus hops on that train after the HG ended I literally sighed out loud, I thought it was going to timeskip to like when Corolianus was an adult.

In my opnion, there was a lot of unnecesary hurdles in Corolianus path that seemed to be there only to make the reader empathize out of pity because he never came out of them wiser or better or even worse given that it's a villain story.
Lucy and Corolianus' love story was utterly disturbing and it would've been much better if those two were best friends or something. The paralells between Lucy and Katniss were nailed over and over and I thought them meaningless to be honest, since there was never any kind of love tension/estranged family bond between Katniss and Snow in the original trilogy.
If anything I think this book made me dislike Coriolanus not as a character, but as a villain which is a shame because President Snow is one the scarier antagonists YA books have.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

mscalls's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Murder