The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games)
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.
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This really picked up at the end but the first two thirds dragged and the whole book was just too long. Even though I enjoyed the end, the pacing was just off and made the ending seem rushed. Snow's inner monologue is insufferable but does explain a lot about how he got from the boy at the beginning of TBOSAS to the villian he became. I thought this was almost like a psychological thriller to be in Snow's brain and see how he devolves. You really see how he is just a complete narcissist and even from the very beginning, before he was totally evil, he was manipulative and lacked empathy. I have read some criticism that the ending seems out of nowhere and that Snow was a "good person" in the beginning of the book and then does a complete 180, but I didn't feel that way at all. I thought the progression was very well written and you can tell from the first page that all of Snow's actions are self-serving.
A LOT of this book is unnecessary fan service to explain things from the original series which made a lot of the story seem contrived. The only callback I really enjoyed was the origin of the Hanging Tree song. But the fact that in this 3 month period, Snow had so many ideas that shaped the Games of the original trilogy made the story's progression less natural. because it seemed like Collins was really just trying to figure out a way to get from A to B.
I do recommend this to readers of the original trilogy and am looking forward to watching the movie!
On one hand, I thought the backstory of Snow was very interesting and seeing how his character progressed was chilling.
I also loved learning about the origins of pieces of history we see during the trilogy.
On the other hand...I was so bored. I made it to about 20% in the physical book years ago. Only finished now because it was audio.
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