Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins

23 reviews

mattiedancer's review

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Writing: 4.75⭐️/5 

As with much of Collins' writing, the book thrives on its visually stunning and well-described settings. What any artistry in her writing might have lacked, she made up for with the impact of the world. And, even with a few stumbly sections in her writing, much of it read cleanly and beautifully–an intriguing insight into a poisonous mind.

Characters: 4.75⭐️/5

A few characters felt a touch jarring, but otherwise, like the setting, the world came alive with the characters. The way in which we understand Corionalus’ thoughts and mental state without overly empathizing with his goals is stunning. The side characters felt explored in their relationship with Coriolanus, meaning the people he liked we knew the most about and the people he thought ill of, we also felt the toxicity of his opinions. 

Plot: 4⭐️/5 

While the plot overall is intriguing and fascinating to watch unfold (believe me, I was slackjawed at several moments), I did feel (SPOILERS HERE) that the resolution of his attempted escape with Lucy Gray was rushed and unclear. Had the book been written in first person, I would’ve accepted this section gleefully as a possible blip in our narration due to an unreliable narrator, but I would have loved more of this section to focus on his mind unravelling a bit slower – as well as Lucy Gray’s realization moving a bit slower – so we could understand this section fully. And, even though I loved all the symbolism that ties us to the original trilogy, the added details connecting Lucy Gray to Katniss’ rebellion and how personally it integrated into Corionalus’ life felt too on the nose. The moment in which Lucy uses the excuse of finding katniss (the plant) to leave him felt a bit too heavy-handed for the analogy that later Katniss (the person) will cause his undoing. The song, The Hanging Tree, being written for him by Lucy also felt too coincidental, especially when tied with his heavy hatred of the mockingjays around District 12 during his time there. I wish some of these tie-backs had been removed or made less vital to slowly grit on his nerves, rather than to so obviously connect him to Katniss. 

Who Should Read This Book? 

• Fans of The Hunger Games trilogy

Content Warnings? 

• Death, murder, child death, parent death, illness, cannibalism, blood, injury, medical trauma, gore

Post-Reading Rating:  5⭐️/5

I wish it had gone on a bit longer, but I was happy with the conclusion.

Final Rating: 4.5⭐️/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Body horror, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Bullying, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Dementia, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Eating disorder, Misogyny, and Sexism

reverieevening's review

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Grief, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Gaslighting, War, Gore, Emotional abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Addiction and Abandonment

cepbreed's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Because of the hubbub surrounding the movie trailer release I decided to pick this up after years of neglecting its existence. My little brother even read it and recommended it to me and I still didn’t give in. Now that I’m done I’m so angry I hadn’t read it earlier. This book made me hate Snow exponentially more.  He and Lucy do not have some wonderful love story. He manipulated her, that is fact. Lucy was a girl thrust into an unimaginable position and all she could do was cling to her only support, her mentor. Snow fancied her as some manic pixie dream girl and I loathe not hearing from her perspective in the books. He thinks he owns her It isn’t only Lucy, he also manipulated Clemensia. Snow took an opportunity to pander for her forgiveness and charm her into accepting his completely falsified apology and she did. He mistreated Tigress though she did everything possible to protect their small family. She was forced to bargain with her own body at an incredibly young age and his only respond was disgust. Poor sweet Sejanus put all of his trust in his “brother” but was betrayed at every turn. Not once did Snow have a sincere, not self-motivated, positive thought about anyone. Certified sociopath. FUCK SNOW I HATE THAT GREASEBALL.

I could talk about the symbolism behind the compact and compass forever.

Songs:

• Fun - Troye Sivan 
• National Anthem - Lana Del Rey 
• Fist - Deftones 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Death, Gaslighting, and Murder

Moderate: Torture, Violence, and War

Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Drug abuse, and Drug use

cait's review

adventurous dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Police brutality, Sexism, Slavery, Stalking, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Colonisation, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Child death, Confinement, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Torture, and Toxic friendship

chronicacademia's review against another edition

dark 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

3.0

I was expecting The Hunger Games 2.0 But Make It a Villain Origin Story and instead I got the world’s worst protagonist, too many descriptions of cabbage soup, and at least a hundred songs.

The world building was good. This book could have (and should have) been an almanac of information to expand The Hunger Games world about how the games developed over time, which would have been more interesting than 500 pages of Young Pre-President Snow complaining about how much his life sucks in the Capitol because he can’t afford his penthouse rent. 

Also, this might be the first book I’ve read in preparation for a movie adaptation where I really hope the movie is not accurate to the book. Because if it is accurate to the book, half the movie is just going to be me sitting in a theater watching Coriolanus Snow sitting in a theater watching the world’s most boring Hunger Games. 

I am so disappointed in this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Cannibalism, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Ableism, Child death, Classism, Grief, Murder, Police brutality, War, Violence, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

sunniva174's review

adventurous challenging dark slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Toxic friendship, War, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Death, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Drug abuse, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

Minor: Animal death

lemonysquish's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.0

I liked it? But the end was so rushed and overly ambiguous. We know Snow is bad and he was never a good guy..

Spoiler

but that was a steep drop off in character development in the last ten pages

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Murder, Torture, Cannibalism, Classism, Confinement, War, and Violence

Minor: Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicidal thoughts

elenaluisa's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Blood, Gun violence, Violence, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Classism, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Slavery, Cultural appropriation, Racism, Colonisation, Deportation, Emotional abuse, and Sexism

brittaka's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.5

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an excellent prequel to the Hunger Games series! Using Snow’s first-person perspective and his internal musings on the state of nature debate, Collins does a masterful job of displaying the eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow’s descent into the bloodthirsty, villainous President Snow readers of the original series will recognize. On a philosophical level, I love that Collins uses this narrative to argue that Thomas Hobbes (who wrote that humanity needs to be controlled in order to be “civilized”) is wrong. Throughout the book, readers see firsthand that those who champion the need for oppressive and violent control and order only do so in the name in maintaining their own sense of supremacy. Snow doesn’t do any of what he does in this story for the Capitol, for the people of Panem, for Lucy Gray, or even for Tigris and the Grandma’am—it’s all for himself, to satiate his own unquenchable desire for power, authority, and complete control. Snow merely uses Hobbes’s philosophies to justify his violent and selfish actions, which (along with Lucy Gray’s contradicting belief that human beings are good at heart) promotes the idea that Hobbes and Snow have it wrong—an idea that Collins fully endorses in the Hunger Games series itself. In other words, this book says “be anti-facist!” and “ACAB” in all the best ways, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has read the original series!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Classism, Murder, Confinement, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Grief, Police brutality, and Gun violence

Minor: Drug use, Drug abuse, Animal death, and Death of parent

studydniowka's review

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-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

4.5

Bardzo dobra młodzieżowa (i nie tylko) dystopia.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Deportation, Grief, Medical trauma, Torture, Toxic relationship, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexism, Slavery, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Colonisation, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Murder, War, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, and Violence