The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
by Suzanne Collins
I went into The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes both curious and cautious. Prequels can be tricky—especially when centered on a character as despised as Coriolanus Snow. What Collins accomplishes here is less a redemption arc and more an autopsy of ambition.
The story takes us back to the tenth Hunger Games, long before the televised spectacle we know. The Games are crude, unpolished, and horrifyingly intimate. Snow, then a young man struggling to maintain his family’s status, becomes a mentor to Lucy Gray Baird—a performer from District 12 whose charisma captivates both the audience and Snow himself.
What I found most compelling was how clearly Collins shows the rot setting in. We see the justifications forming in real time, the slow erosion of empathy under the weight of privilege and fear. The pacing lags in places, and I missed the emotional urgency of Katniss’s voice, but the themes—power, performance, and the manipulation of narrative—land with force.
It’s not a book I loved, but it’s one I kept thinking about afterward. And that, to me, says something about its quiet effectiveness.
Tropes / Themes:
Villain origin story
Morality and ambition
Political manipulation
Survival through performance
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