Skip to main content

Book Review: "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"


A good series always ends with a dynamic prequel!

     Let's flash backwards to Suzanne Collins' world of Panem, where President Snow is merely eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow making his way through his senior year in the Capitol's prestigious high school. He's preparing to become one of the 24 first student mentors in the Tenth Annual Hunger Games. Readers see a historic version of Panem, decades before Katniss Everdeen was even a blimp on the country's radar of civilization. Irony is alive and well in this prequel, however, as Snow's tribute as an unlikely female located in none other than... District 12!
     Snow is fascinated by Lucy Gray, a witty-unconventional young woman who claims to not actually be from District 12 originally, but apart of a small traveling music group known as the Covey. The entire novel has short but meaningful instances featuring songs and music. Melodies shared among characters, all familiar as they are referenced throughout the Hunger Games trilogy (both on the page and screen). For instance, The Hanging Tree (beautiful melody and cut-throat words). It's all quite riveting how music was a tactical interweaving theme connecting this prequel to the rest of the trilogy, in addition to the obvious violence and danger that surrounds the Hunger Games.
    It was insightful and truly enlightening to see this side of Snow as a young man. He went through a number of ordeals in this prequel that I'm sure many readers, including myself, were unable to imagine when introduced to his decades older character in the trilogy. Relationships were formed and irrevocably extinguished in this novel, along with betrayals beyond realization until a reader is inhaling the last sentence of a chapter only to stumble into the next looking for answers. The attention to detail when it came to describing the setting and location of each area was done tremendously well. It's interesting attempting to picture a world in which you're already familiar to as a reader, however, that world is entirely different considering it's decades before anything that's been read.
    I'd highly recommend this prequel to those who have already been exposed (and fallen into obsession) with the Hunger Games. I am personally not entirely a huge fan of the length of the novel, considering it's longer than any of the others in the trilogy. ALTHOUGH, it's chock full of information, both relevant to the trilogy and Panem as a whole, that its worth pushing through the amount of pages. (Mind you, I read a number of lengthy novels, I'm just extra eager to get to the end of something that I've been looking forward to!) 
     Hope this review finds everyone in good times and if you were hesitant to consider reading another prequel of a well-read series--I hope you aren't anymore! :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Slaying Review

  Grady Hendrix has composed a story with southern charm, riveting suspense and extensive character development. This novel spans over 11 years, centered around the antics and pandemonium of a house wives' book club. The main character, Patricia Campbell, has two children and a husband who works full time outside of the home. She handles day-to-day schedules within the home, along with participating in community events. Patricia does have a past working full time as a nurse with extensive schooling, however, she chose to be a stay at home mother to better tend to her children and keep her family afloat comfortably. Participating in the neighborhood book club allows Patricia the opportunity to bond with her fellow stay-at-home mothers, all ranging with a variety of personalities and family sizes. With normal growing mundane, the neighborhood gains a single gentleman who reaches out to Patricia after a nontraditional meeting and inquires about assistance with fitting in. The tasks se...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Remarkable Trilogy

     ***SPOILERS***      An utterly epic conclusion to a phenomenal trilogy!   The dynamic couple, Lou & Reid, undergo exceptional challenges in order to return back to each other. Lou fights through a difficult occurrence of possession, which takes an inscrutable amount of strength to overcome--including her guilt with Ansel's demise. She develops the opportunity to meet with Ansel post-death & gains a sense of comfort in knowing he's okay (a chapter that readers WILL bawl their eyes out reading, just saying!)     Once Lou finally reaches Reid once more after her possessive episode, Reid undergoes a bout of "sleeping curse". He comes full-circle with his powers & sacrifices his time with Lou in order to ensure her mother cannot harm her any further. Upon waking up--Reid has memory loss & this ensures Lou to attempt at getting it back--through any & all means. Eventually, extremely last minute, Reid retu...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Dagger & the Dictaphone

The Queen of Mystery is back at it again with another installment of the Hercule Poirot detective mystery series. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  takes place in King's Abbot, which is located in Great Britain. Both Mrs. Ferrars' and Mr. Ackroyd's deaths happen simultaneously after one another--one by an overdose and one by a dagger. Narrator Dr. James Sheppard is a physician who not only oversaw Mrs. Ferrars' death, but also Mr. Ackroyd's. It was shortly discovered after both murders that Dr. Sheppard's mysterious neighbor was the infamous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot! After being incognito for a time, Flora Ackroyd was able to persuade him to investigate her late uncle's murder. This mystery novel introduces a number of different characters that all hold specific roles to the background of the village and the murder itself. When reading it, I found everyone seemed to have a suspicious factor about them, but Hercule Poirot was able to weave between the s...
Post a Comment
Read more