Book Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (2020)

For those who are somehow unaware, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel published in 2020 to Suzanne Collins' series The Hunger Games.

*** NO SPOILERS ***

A ballad takes its time to tell a story, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes does exactly the same thing. I don't want to get into plot specifics because if I do then I'll accidentally give details away and I don't want to ruin the book for you. But I will say that it is a bit of a slow-mover. It took me maybe 2 weeks to read it, which for me is a long time, but is kind of the timeframe that this book requires. So keep in mind while reading that it's a slow-burn book. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it just is.

It's fascinating to read about Panem and the Capitol before Katniss Everdeen was even a twinkle in her parents' eyes. The Hunger Games format is brutal at this point in their history. The kids are mistreated and starved before going into the Hunger Games. They're abused and they're kept in what was an old animal exhibit in the local zoo. So it's actually harder to experience the Hunger Games this way because at least Katniss and her fellow tributes were treated like cherished possessions instead of trash.

One odd aspect is that for the first time readers are experiencing the Hunger Games from outside the games themselves. We're not in the ring with the tributes. Instead, we're merely observing the Games through the eyes of Capitol citizens. So there's a bit of a disconnect between what's happening in the Games because we're not actually with any of the tributes, feeling what they're feeling, seeing what they're seeing. We're almost forced to be impartial and that's a little chilling.

The book is also not in First Person, a departure from Suzanne Collins' usual chosen voice. She went the route of a Third Person narrative, following the thoughts and experiences and choices of 17-year-old Coriolanus Snow. Yes, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is about President Snow before he turned evil. In fact, this is his transformation story from being merely a teenager from a financially devastated family to the very beginnings of becoming the smooth-talking, conniving president of Panem we'll see in the future

Following Coryo is unsettling for three reasons:

1. We already know, fear, and hate President Snow but it's hard to force those feelings onto a teenage boy
2. There are distinct moments when the reader might almost agree with his logic
3. It's very human of him to fall in love

The readers are also introduced to another District Twelve female tribute, the mesmerizing Lucy Gray Baird. Like Katniss, Lucy Gray is a singer, although to a much more professional degree than Katniss, and she uses music as a means of garnering support from the audience. Lucy Gray knows how to play the audience, unlike Katniss who needed to be guided/forced every step of the way to make herself appealing. Lucy Gray Baird was already appealing, even covered in the grime of her journey from District Twelve to the Capitol.

Overall The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is about the evolution of The Hunger Games. By the end of the story, readers understand how The Hunger Games becomes the massive entertainment experience that it ends up being. And we know why and can almost appreciate the change. Because, despite all of the horribleness of The Hunger Games, President Snow made them more humane than they were at the beginning.

I'm a little conflicted about this book. I didn't love it, but I didn't dislike it either. It was more like an anthropological experience. Like observing the evolution of a culture, going back in time to the tipping point when a culture moves from one thing to something else. There's a distinctive melancholic tone throughout the story because for the first time I realized how much the citizens of the Capitol suffered during the war too. It wasn't just the districts suffering; horrible things happened in the Capitol too. Coryo was just a kid going through the war with only his grandmother and his cousin, eating lima beans every day until he was sick at the sight of them. He has PTSD. So there's a sympathy there for this little boy turned teenager who saw and experienced dreadful things. 

It's impossible to agree with Panem's choice to create The Hunger Games. But I see how they arrived at their decision. It's not a means of punishing the districts for the war, but is a method of winning the war again, and again, and again every single year. It ensures defeat for the Districts every single year. It's a brutal method, but it worked for 75 years to keep the status quo from shifting.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is very different from The Hunger Games trilogy. As I already stated, it's a slow-burn and a lot of readers may not like that. There isn't a lot of action either, but I found that just when my mind would start to wander something interesting would happen to pull me back into the story. I'm glad I bought it and glad I read it. I hope Suzanne Collins writes more one-off novels for The Hunger Games going forward since there are still so many other stories that could be told.