The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

I’m so glad I finally got around to reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. I loved The Hunger Games series when I was in middle school, and I was really excited when this book first came out. I must have checked it out from my local library, like, five times, but school and life always got in the way.

This book focuses on the tenth Hunger Games. Most of the pomp and circumstance around the Hunger Games that readers of the original series would be familiar with hasn’t been established. In fact, this is the first year that tributes are assigned mentors. Coriolanus Snow is assigned the girl from District Twelve, Lucy Gray Baird. He does everything he can to help her win to secure his future and ends up absolutely obsessed with her.

Coriolanus Snow is such an interesting narrator. I loved how, through Snow’s perspective, Collins was able to explain Snow’s mindset and behavior without ever excusing it. While Snow was often convinced he was making the best choice he could, the reader was never brought into his delusions. There was always someone else–Sejanus, Lucy Gray, Tigris–to show how and why Snow’s choices were wrong.

I also really admire how Collins shows how quickly a social contract can become harmful. She takes the democratic ideas and twists them–by the end of the book, Snow is convinced that without a strong government, people would tear themselves apart like animals. Collins shows how a poor, traumatized young man can become a chilling, calculated villain slowly but surely, choice after choice. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of power, following authority unquestioningly, and the consequences of dehumanizing people.

On a lighter note, it was so interesting to read about the mechanics of the early Hunger Games and early District Twelve. There was so much foreshadowing, so many seeds planted, for what Panem would become. I’m in the middle of reading Sunrise on the Reaping, and I’m seeing the continuations of everything that was started in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I’m excited to reread the original series–I think I’ll be able to understand Collin’s message in more depth with all this background.

Finally, I’m obsessed with the open ending. Did Lucy Gray escape? Did she die? No one knows. Her mystery further shows Snow’s degradation and unreliableness. While Snow may choose to believe she died, I’m going to believe that she escaped him–that she escaped it all.

Thanks for reading with me,

Katie