Introduction
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was written by Suzanne Collins and published on May 19th, 2020, by Scholastic publishing company. This book was released almost a decade following the completion of the original The Hunger Games trilogy and tells the prequel story of future president Coriolanus Snow, and his experience as a mentor in the games. The first time I read this book was last month (October at the time of this release) in preparation for the movie release, and I wish I had read it earlier. I was not shocked by how much I loved the book, but I was absolutely floored by the level of emotion it drew from me. It has been one of my favorite reads recently, and I have been dying to share it with others, talking it over with anyone and everyone who has read it as we await the movie release - now only days away. I don’t think I can accurately articulate how excited I am to see this book put to film, but hopefully the Thoughts sections of this post can give some indication. This is a reminder that the Spoiler-Free Thoughts section will not cover specifics from this book, but I do occasionally touch on the previously released installations of the series. If you have read the book - which I highly encourage all of you to do - then please continue on to my Thoughts section and let me know your opinions. I haven’t been this eager for a conversation about a recent read in a while.
If you are interested in learning more about Suzanne Collins and her upcoming work, you can visit her website https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/index.htm.
Plot
After the end of the war that raged across Panem, retribution has been demanded of the districts through the Hunger Games. Only for this year - the tenth annual Hunger Games - students of the Academy have been called to mentor the tributes. Coriolanus Snow is set to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, and the course of their lives will be forever changed by one another.
Spoiler-Free Thoughts
It was interesting to see that Coriolanus Snow has always been exactly as tactical as we saw in the original trilogy. What we learned here was more context for the strategic decisions he made throughout those books and who exactly taught him all of those things. His interpersonal relationships are so interesting because it appears as though he truly cares about nobody but himself, or at the very least, he cares about himself more than everybody else. We see clearly why he will not lie to Katniss, why he is not wasteful with human life, and why he so detests chaos.
Lucy Gray reminds me of Katniss in that she’s smart, spunky, and has good instincts. Aside from that, they are almost opposites. Lucy Gray is bubbly and bright, she draws attention and holds it, playing the audience for all they’re worth. She seems almost like a blend between Katniss and Peeta, and part of me wonders if Snow didn’t recognize her in them when they first arrived in the Capital.
The pacing of the book is a bit odd when trying to lay it out here, and I think that has to do in part because it loosely revolves around the state of Lucy Gray and Coriolanus’ relationship. In the beginning, before they know each other, it’s slower. There isn’t much need for world building, but Collins did need to establish the new and old characters, their relationships, the state of Panem, and the status of the games. Once the games finally begin, there are periods of nothing followed by spurts of action before the victor is crowned. The third act follows a steady pace until the ending, where everything picks up quickly and ends abruptly. At the time, it felt too sudden, and I was left reeling from the ambiguity of it all. Looking back on it after reflecting on their natures as characters, I can see precisely why Collins ended the book the way she did. Looking back, I love the way she told this story.
Dr. Gaul was an interesting character, but what I thought was more interesting were her ideas and how they meshed with the Dean’s version of the Games. Dr. Gaul had an immense influence on Snow’s way of thinking in not only how the games are used, but why, and what exactly would happen should they be ended. While both the Dean and Dr. Gaul are demanding of the student mentors, it’s clear that Dr. Gaul favors Snow where the Dean is spiteful towards him for reasons unknown until the very end. The more minor characters call to the future as well, and I love the intention behind every detail, specifically the names. The Covey aside, Capital children were given names of gods and goddesses from ancient civilizations, making it clear exactly how they viewed themselves. It was wonderful to see the Capital beginning to show interest in the games when previously we had known it to be the main event of each year. The character that most defied this was Sejanus. A truly lovable and well-intentioned character, his story may have been the most tragic of them all.
There is so much more I wish I had time and space to cover, and none of this even includes the movie release coming up in just a few days. However, what I can say is that writing this review had me delving deeper than I have in quite some time to analyze the themes and characters presented, as well as the manner in which the story was told. I am in love with this book, and though no book is perfect, I have to give this one a 10/10.
Thoughts
Something that immediately struck me about Coriolanus was his persistent feeling that everyone - especially those from the districts, like Sejanus - were beneath him. His family was destitute, only maintaining their good name through secrecy, and yet he still thought himself better than all of them. It was striking to me how little compassion he would grow to have after everything he went through, with the exception of the ending. Dr. Gaul certainly influenced his thinking, and I’ll touch more on that later, but what I loved about this book was how it set up his adult persona. I mentioned in my previous reviews how much I loved his transparency with Katniss and how refreshing it was, and that stems from Gaul. After the incident with Clemensia and the snakes, he learned the consequences of lying could result in the shedding of innocent blood. As monstrous as he may be, he does not take life lightly, and we can see that he has felt that way from the beginning. After being sent into the arena himself and experiencing true chaos for the first time, he was exposed to the fragility of the capital and the furthest reaches of human nature, and I can clearly see why he clung to the power he worked so hard to amass.
Lucy Gray is a wonder. While I applauded Katniss and Peeta for using their knowledge of past games to develop tactics of their own, she had to do all of it on her own. Almost every aspect of these Games was brand new except for the Games themselves, and she did a brilliant job using the new additions to her advantage. She used her ingenuity to survive the games, but she would have died if not for Snow’s influence. He cheated to get her out alive, and it worked, but it had the potential to cause political unrest within the Capital and districts. That was likely why he was so quick to recognize the damage Katniss did with the berries. Not because he was President and in charge of tracking that information, but because he did something similar to keep his love alive. I do like that, with as many similarities as there are between Lucy, and Katniss and Peeta, Collins gave her a different, arguably more impactful outlet. Katniss hunted, Peeta painted, and Lucy performed. The Hanging Tree. In Mockingjay, Katniss could only speculate its significance, as she learned it from her father, much to her mother's dismay. Learning the precise origins of the song, and to hear Rachel Zegler perform it gives me chills every single time.
When preparing notes for this review, I wrote that Snow’s shift at the end felt like a complete 180, and I was jarred by it. I do think that Coriolanus loved Lucy Gray, but never more than his power and chance of success. His own instincts for self preservation inevitably overshadowed all else. After leaving Lucy Gray for dead in the forest, never knowing what became of her, he used his calculating nature, knowledge of the fragility of the Capital, and his new perspectives on human nature granted to him by Dr. Gaul to rise in the Capital. He integrates into Sejanus’ family, using their support to wind up exactly where he thought he deserved to be. Exactly where we know him to be at the start of The Hunger Games. Meanwhile, Lucy Gray became as ghostly as her namesake, leaving behind her songs for the Covey to spread and Katniss to sing decades later. I wonder what Snow thought when he heard The Hanging Tree, again sung from the mouth of a rebel. All of it was brilliant and tragic.
The themes of order and chaos are incredibly prevalent in this book, more so than any of the others. The Games have always been used to threaten and control the citizens of Panem, and Dr. Gaul appears hell-bent on seeing and believing in the worst of humanity. She throws children into a kill-or-be-killed scenario, and she uses the results as proof of her hypotheses that she spread through generations of Capital children. As for the Dean, his behavior was confusing at the beginning, but discovering at the end that his morphine addiction was to cope with the guilt of founding the Games puts a whole new perspective on his character motivations. He never wanted this monstrous solution to see the light of day, and Snow’s father was the reason it did. We discover all of this just before Snow poisons the very drug the Dean became reliant on, symbolically beginning his reign of terror. Even as tragic as that death was, none can compare to that of sweet Sejanus. A young boy trying to do the right thing, and who put his trust in the wrong people, meeting a cruel end that would echo not just through that clearing by the hanging tree, but through the lives of those there to witness. It certainly changed Lucy Gray and Coriolanus.
Comments