Coriolanus Snow, future president of Panem, is just eighteen-years-old in this prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel of the Hunger Games trilogy, takes us on a journey with Coriolanus Snow, a young, handsome, smart boy who is trying to make a future for himself. The timeline places us a month before the start of the 10th edition of the Hunger Games, and Coriolanus was among the chosen to mentor a tribute, something is never done before.
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Coriolanus Snow was charming, well-mannered, and distinguished, but also greedy, manipulative, and unempathetic – all of this made him a really dangerous person. Lucy Gray is portrayed as an innocent little girl trying to get herself through a traumatic experience unharmed. The development of the characters was well written and not rushed at all.
“If you have read the main trilogy you may expect to read something similar – at least when it comes to the development of the games. However, that is not the case.”
The Book Guide® Editor
The book had multiple plot twists and explained lot the traditions of District 12 – it even explains a very popular song Katniss sings and the origin of the mockingjays. It definitely left me wanting more.
If you do not know whether to read this book or not, do it. You won’t be disappointed.
The most captivating piece of the book is in the early development and psychology behind The Hunger Games. It’s a fresh angle. We get to see Capitol citizens living in a post-war redevelopment stage, in which they’ve actually experienced starvation and fear. They have not yet been lulled into complacency regarding the depravity of the games. I loved reading the moral based arguments that eventually abandoned themselves for a fear-conditioned dependency on the power structure between the districts and the Capitol.
Without Coriolanus Snow, we would only have been able to read about this time through a newly made-up character. As loathsome as Panem’s president is, it was a brilliant and logical choice to write from his perspective.
It was fascinating to think of the Games before they were a huge production fueled by gambling, showmanship, and style. The classic arena with tickets, turnstiles, and viewing boxes and the delivery of the victors like livestock in a cattle car. The games of the past are the same as the games of the future, only played out on a smaller, more openly brutal and inhumane scale. No prize but survival, no posh meals (or food at all), no elegant outfits, no interviews, no tokens, no training, and no mentors. Until the 10th Hunger Games.
The mentoring system begins with students of the Capitol’s Academy, Coriolanus Snow being one of them. Several of the Capitol students bond with their tribute and mourn their death. This obviously eventually gives way to the Victor-Mentor system, because there has to be division between the Capitol and the Districts to continue the “eternal war”.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020) By: Suzanne Collins
Dune (2007) By: Glennon Doyle-
by The Book Guide® Editors4/5 Good
