Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins


I doubt that anyone ever expected that there would one day be a prequel to The Hunger Games, least of all me. And if I had ever, for a moment, expected one, I never would have dreamed that the prequel would focus on a young Coriolanus Snow. After all, President Snow from The Hunger Games was old, horribly corrupt and selfish to the core. And YA heroes are supposed to have a heart of gold ... aren't they?

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes readers on a very surprising ride. Set during the Tenth Hunger Games, the novel introduces us to Coriolanus Snow as an eighteen year old student living in the Capital. On the outside, his family have it all, tradition, a good name and wealth. But as Snow knows only too well, appearances can be deceiving. His family have little money following on from the war and he knows that the only way out is to get a good education. But, it seems, his school will require him to mentor the Female tribute from District Twelve for this years Hunger Games. And, it seems, there are also some very sinister forces at work within the school. Who can Coriolanus trust? 

More importantly, who will he be willing to betray?

Some of the twists and turns in this one amazed me. Lucy Gray was not only a force to be reckoned with, but one too good for her mentor in every respect. Her part in the story is as tragic as what one would expect. Snow is arrogant from the outset, though the influence of a professor and manipulations who is as insane as she is evil, certainly help to bring out the worst in him. Snow's a difficult character to feel sorry for, but he's also in a near impossible situation. 

Although this one isn't quite as memorable as the series that inspired it, I enjoyed the many twists and turns and reading about a main character that I loved ... to hate. 

Recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more