Booktober – The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Can you ever imagine feeling sorry for someone like President Snow from The Hunger Games? In her most recent novel, Suzanne Collins introduces us to the young Coriolanus Snow and his less than luxurious upbringing in the Capitol after the loss of both his parents and you can’t help but feel some sympathy for Coriolanus of all people. The future President Snow.

Greetings all, you’ll be all happy to know that for my last review I’ve picked a book that is a bit more appropriate for Spooky Season, ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ so the odds are ever in our favour that there will be plenty of death, murder, betrayal and all the things that made Collins’ original series famous. Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games trilogy, became an international best seller and even had her books adapted into movies and to date her books have been published in fifty three languages. That is no small feat and people clearly adored her writing style and her characters. This novel, however, has nothing to do with our beloved Katniss Everdeen; rather it focuses on the earlier years of one Coriolanus Snow who would later become the intimidating presence known as President Snow in the Hunger Games series. For a prequel book to follow the story of the villain is a new one on me but Collins does a spectacular job of creating a sympathetic character but always reminding the reader of his self-serving motivations.

I will admit that I picked up this book, based solely on my love for the original series and I genuinely had no clue that the main character would be our villain from the original series. A villain I loved to hate, may I add. He was very much the haunting presence of the Hunger Games series and to learn about his past and his involvement in the development of some of the concepts for the Hunger Games made me hate him that little bit more. But rather than just giving you more reasons to hate Snow, Collins also reminds you that there were other factors that influenced Snow’s actions in his adolescent years. You see that Coriolanus is capable of feeling, of caring and of basic human decency but these actions, more often than not, have some sort of benefit attached for him even if we, as the reader, don’t realise the potential benefits straight away. We also begin to see those killer instincts in action and we watch as Coriolanus justifies these murders as protecting others and you can only assume that he continues to justify the murders that would be necessary to help him become President.

One thing that I love in this novel is that, much like Katniss in the original trilogy, the odds seem to be extremely stacked against Snow. In a series where the key line is “May the odds be ever in your favour,” Coriolanus is definitely the underdog. He must outwit, out do and in general, overcome his classmates in order to successfully mentor the winning tribute and he gets the District 12 girl which is almost an insult on its own. He is depending on her to win to keep him in good social standing while she is depending on him to survive but I bet you never expected him to start feeling for his tribute. So he has two options: follow the rules and fail, which means a plethora of problems for him and his family, or he can help both himself and his tribute survive by any means necessary. As a reader of the Hunger Games, you almost instinctively root for the underdog but the underdog is a young President Snow. Ah, I love a good moral dilemma in my novels.

But! There’s always a but with something like this. This book, though really well written, seems to tag in references to the original series for no reason other than to remind you that this is a prequel. There is a reference to a plant called Katniss (bit on the nose don’t you think?) and the origin of the song “The Hanging Tree” and personally I didn’t think either were necessary especially considering, as far as I can remember, the song never appeared in the books and was written for the movie. We also have no idea how Snow got from his position at the end of the novel to President and that sounds like a very interesting plot in my opinion. I mean as the book itself says: “Snow lands on top.”

Overall, none of these things ruin the book though. It was written in true Hunger Games fashion with plenty of tension and high stakes and it’s a great way to return to the world of Panem, looking at it from a new perspective and realizing that Panem is just as ruthless in the Capitol as it is in the Districts. It’s a great book for the fans of the series and Collins can still foreshadow a death like a boss.