I have been staring at this blank page for the longest time. Just unable to gather my thoughts and write them down. But before I get into the review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I really want to say that I was and am a big fan of The Hunger Games series. As I have said before, the first book of this series was the first book I ever read in English. This series has always had a sweet spot in my heart and might be one of the reasons why I became interested in writing.
People seem to either hate or love this book. However, I am somewhere in the middle of both. The book started off really nice, I liked the writing pace, the set up of the story and Coriolanus Snow's background. When reading the first chapters I remembered how much Suzanne Collins' writing style, her flow and the easiness of the words on the pages. It made me want to reread The Hunger Games series, it has been a good while since the last time I read it.
Coriolanus has lost both his parents in the war, he lives with his Grandma (Grandma'am) and his niece Tigris and they're poor. Although they live in a penthouse, they do not have much furniture and not much food. This entire set up has it's similarities to The Hunger Games' series and Katniss life before the games. Coriolanus is 18 and we get to know that he is a mentor in the 10th Hunger Games. A new feature of the games, this shows that it wasn't as fully developed as it is when Katniss volunteers 64 years later. The games weren't entertainment, they were created as punishment for the war. The people in the Capitol even seem to dislike it and prefer not to watch it at all.
For Coriolanus these games are very important, the outcome has much influence on his future. He is unable to pay for a university degree, so being the mentor of the winning candidate would ensure that he could study. Yet, he is assigned Lucy Gray from district 12. This, of course, lowers his chances of winning: District 12 is seen as the lowest district. Yet Lucy Gray is something else and during the days before the games, Coriolanus and Lucy get to know each other. As a reader, you know that Coriolanus works hard for his future and Lucy is his way to get there, yet Lucy believes Coriolanus to be a good person and different from the rest of the Capitol.
During the novel, Coriolanus doesn't seem to improve, instead, he gets worse. Where, at the beginning of the book, I could still sort of sympathise with him; this gets less and less over the course of the novel. To the point where I really disliked his character. For me, the choices he made were not logical to me, it seemed that he was evil for the sake of being evil. I did not get the reason for his choices. Maybe that it is just me, but I did not always saw the true reason for his choices. He just seemed to justify his actions to himself. This is one of the main reasons I just disliked the novel more and more as I went through it.
Even though I really enjoyed Collins' writing, I felt like this book was not needed. At least, I did not find it very significant for the original series. Of course, it is fun to know more background information like the origin of some of the Hunger Games songs and the features that are added to Katniss' games. However, I did not need a novel like this dedicated to it. It doesn't do much for me.
I do not often dislike novels, mostly I am very good (not to brag) at choosing books that I will enjoy. So it is hard to not like it, even though I want to because I do like the writing style and of course The Hunger Games... I haven't done this before, but I really liked this review of TheFictionFolio. She is more positive about the novel than I am but reviewed the book really in-depth. Thank you all for reading my review, it took me longer than I wanted to, to write this post. It was challenging for me to critique the book because I often just praise books. But this is all a learning experience for me. I will see you Saturday!
Keep reading,
Julia
Interested in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? You can buy the book here. (This is an affiliate link, without extra costs for you, I earn a small commission on your purchase.)
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