A review by diany_in_bookland
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

2.0

I went into this with pretty low expectations because I personally didn’t want a President Snow origin story. I’m glad the writing style was similar to the original Hunger Games books because I enjoyed the nostalgic feeling I got reading this book. I did find myself falling asleep while reading and the fact that it was a lot longer than the original trilogy’s books didn’t make it much better. I love a good dense book, but this was just way too slow for me.
There were those classic scenes that were rather gruesome and harder to read, but they happened to quickly. The exciting bits happened so fast and then the plot went right back to that slow pace that didn’t do much for the plot.
I’d much rather have followed Lucy Gray throughout this book. I felt for her and I related to her. The ending was enough to jerk me a bit but the rest of the characters were rather underdeveloped. When they were hurt or died, it was hard to feel with for them.
As much as I did like Lucy Gray, I hated this “romance”. Snow saw her as property and something that he owned. He even described it less of jealousy and more of her being his. It’s not a major plot point, but it still is a constant underlying storyline.
Last thing, it was way longer than it should’ve been. By the time I got to the end of Part 2, I felt like it could’ve ended. Part 3 felt sort of irrelevant and hard to follow because it was, again, so slow. I would’ve preferred the book ending after the games did.