The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
by Suzanne Collins
Series: Hunger Games #0.5
Series Rating:
Published by Scholastic Press on May 19, 2020
Genres: YA Dystopia
Pages: 523
Format: Audible Audiobook, Hardcover, Kindle, Paperback
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Ambition will fuel him.
Competition will drive him.
But power has its price.It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
Suzanne Collins’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells how one man became the most hated man in Panem.
Can Coriolanus get District 12 its first win?
Coriolanus Snow
Coriolanus Snow is just a young man dealt a lousy hand. He was just five years old when he lost his mom and sister in one fell swoop. Then, he lost his father a few months later, thanks to a rebel shooter in District 12. Coryo, known to his cousin and close friends, has been poor since the end of the war when he was only eight, and now, ten years later, he’s still not well off in the money department.
Coriolanus has some good qualities. However, they are shadowed by the fact that he can fixate on a problem, or more like obsess over something, and have that completely overwhelm everything else. This part of him, sometimes, gets buried, but when it does come out in certain areas of the book, the poor little boy who could love diminishes. Coryo could’ve been a good guy, but after his experience with the Hunger Games and things after that, it just didn’t help him.
I enjoyed reading Coryo’s progression in the book from the good little kid to the obsessive man. He is definitely one of those characters that I love to hate.
Lucy Gray Baird
Lucy Gray Baird is the lead singer of her band back home in District 12. Their group name, Covey, is the original name from before the war started. Lucy Gray was also dealt a bad hand in life. But unlike Coriolanus, who fixated on fixing everything for his Grandma’am and Tigris to live the life they should’ve been if they had no war, she focused on all of the positive things and that:
I think there’s a natural goodness built into human beings.
This is really sweet of her, especially after she survived the Hunger Games and was the first victor for District 12.
I liked Lucy Gray, and I love how her last few scenes took a turn for the worse with Snow in the future. I also think that Lucy Gray wanted to believe that Snow was a good person. That allowed her to fall in love with him. Lucy Gray isn’t naive; I believe she had a better future away from him and everything else.
Five Stars
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins is Coriolanus Snow’s story of becoming the man we know from the last three books. Ms. Collins’ did a fantastic job of letting us see Coryo try to be a good person while ultimately losing that battle. Years of being in the Capitol did that to him, especially with exposure to Dr. Gaul, the mad scientist that she is.
My rating for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins is five stars, which I recommend. It’s a great story!
Hunger Games
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins.
Until the next time,
Happy Reading!
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About Suzanne Collins
In 1991, Suzanne Collins began her professional career writing for children’s television. She worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. She also co-wrote the Rankin/Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! with her friend, Peter Bakalian, which was nominated for a WGA Award in Animation. Most recently she was the Head Writer for Scholastic Entertainment’s Clifford’s Puppy Days,and a freelancer on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! While working on a Kids WB show called Generation O! she met children’s author and illustrator James Proimos, who talked her into giving children’s books a try.
Thinking one day about Alice in Wonderland, she was struck by how pastoral the setting must seem to kids who, like her own, lived in urban surroundings. In New York City, you’re much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you’re not going to find a tea party. What you might find…? Well, that’s the story of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in her five-part fantasy/war series, The Underland Chronicles,which became a New York Times bestseller. It has been sold into 21 foreign territories.
Her next series, The Hunger Games Trilogy, is an international bestseller. The Hunger Games has spent over six years to date on The New York Times bestseller list since publication in September 2008, and has also appeared consistently on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. It has been sold into 54 territories in 52 languages. In 2010 Suzanne was named to the TIME 100 list as well as the Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year list. In 2016, she was presented the 2016 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community for exemplifying the unique power of young people’s literature to change lives and create lifelong book lovers. It was the first time the Guild presented the award to a YA author.
Lionsgate released a film adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES on March 23, 2012, directed by Gary Ross who also shared screenplay credit with Suzanne and Billy Ray. It broke multiple box office records and went on to become the 14th highest-grossing North American release of all time on its way to generating nearly $700 million at the worldwide box office. Lionsgate released the second installment THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE worldwide on November 22, 2013, directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy and Michael DeBruyn and bringing back stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields, Paula Malcomson, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci and Lenny Kravitz along with new cast members Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone and Jeffrey Wright. It was the highest-grossing domestic box office release of 2013 and the 10th highest-grossing domestic release of all time. Lionsgate released THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 1 on November 21, 2014 and THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2 on November 20, 2015, also directed by Lawrence and welcoming Julianne Moore, Mahershala Ali, Natalie Dormer, and Patina Miller to the cast. Both screenplays were by Peter Craig and Danny Strong from an adaptation by Suzanne Collins. All four films were produced by Nina Jacobson of Color Force and Jon Kilik. The worldwide box for the entire franchise was nearly 3 billion.
In September 2013, Suzanne released a critically acclaimed autobiographical picture book, YEAR OF THE JUNGLE, illustrated by James Proimos. It deals with the year she was six and her father was deployed to Viet Nam. It has been sold into 12 territories in 11 languages. Her first picture book, WHEN CHARLIE MCBUTTON LOST POWER, about a boy obsessed with computer games, was illustrated by Mike Lester and came out in 2005. It has been sold into 4 foreign territories.
Her books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide.
^taken from her website
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2024 Alphabet Soup-Author Edition-RC
- 2024 Goodreads RC
- 2024 TBR Jar Reading Challenge
- 2024 Young Adult Book Reading Challenge
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