Week 25 Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

From Goodreads:
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined - every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute...and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

My Review:
Man, this book was pretty creepy and great to read. After all, if you've read the original trilogy-and why would you read this book without having read that one?-you know that Snow is the bad guy there. And this is him as a teen, just 10 years after the war. So it was really interesting to learn all this new information.

Coriolanus is an awful person. His thoughts were controlling, selfish, self-absorbed, and while I was reading it, I didn't think too, too, badly of him, besides when he called Lucy Gray his. Like she was his possession. And his jealousy! Other than that, he seemed pretty much like a regular dude. But looking back, I see the unhealthy thoughts and thought processes he had.

I should've reread the series. I'm going to, but I should've read it first, because seeing another review of this book, I didn't catch that his cousin, Tigris, was in Mockingjay. So I didn't have that little added connection to the series, because yeah, this is a small, but significant part of why Snow is such a awful person. His cousin, who did so much for him, and to know her situation in the future...yeah.

Man, we learned so much in this book! Like, who created the idea of the Hunger Games. How it evolved to the circus that we saw in the trilogy. There's the origin of The Hanging Tree song. Coriolanus starting off in a poor spot in the beginning, but being the president of Panem in the end, and how that happened. Oh, man!

One thing, is that with the 10th Hunger Games footage being erased, did that include all the stuff that happened between the reaping and the games? Because a lot of the stuff there, and everything that happened in these games, well, it deserved to exist. How many teens died this game? 23 + at least 2 Capitol kids. So much happened in these games, the first and only time having Capitol Kids as Mentors, the start of the bidding and having sponsors and gifts in the arena, of having a commentator. Not as a way to glorify death, but to remember all these lives that were lost, and how, and why.

It was funny, I didn't really know where this book was going to go. Because the Hunger Games ended, and the book didn't. Watching the story progress from there, I was anxious, because I didn't want it to go wrong, though it had to-Snow is the villain in the trilogy. Knowing that a dark, well, darker, path was coming, I was apprehensive, but I couldn't put it down!

This book won't be for everyone, but yeah, it was a great look into this world and this character who was so integral to the trilogy!

Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: The Hunger Games #0
Read: June 15th, 2020
Source: Ebook.bike
Reason Why: Love her writing and this series, and it's a 2020 Dystopia Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2020 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: May 19th 2020

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars