Review: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The Movie Will Not do it Justice (Spoilers).

Seeing as the movie adaptation of Suzanna Collin’s A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is coming out next week, I took it upon myself to re-read the book so that I could give a review of it before the movie comes out. Will I be watching the movie? No, for reasons I listed in a different blog. However, I will continue to do reviews based on the books, so let’s get into it.

#1: It’s a prequel about the villian

While I am not the biggest fan of prequels focusing on the backstory of villians unless they strengthen the lore of the story and aren’t trying to justify their later actions, I was pleasantly surprised with A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The story centers around Coriolanus Snow, who you may remember as being the main villian of The Hunger Games. In this story, Snow isn’t exactly the bad guy, though he does act with selfish motives that would earn him the title of an anti-hero. His motivation is to mentor his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, in the 10th Hunger Games so he can save his family name and make a future for himself. However, the way he goes about it is somewhat questionable.

While Snow has always been a manipulator – especially towards the people he considers his friends – his manipulation throughout the games is interesting to say the least, especially as he fights with his conscience about it. For example, when Sejanus Plinth (one of his classmates whom he hates) brings food to the tributes, he helps him feed them, making the whole scene look like it was his idea. This later paints the narritive that Sejanus and Snow are friends, making it easier for him to manipulate Sejanus so he gets a leg up. Snow continues this manipulation until Sejanus’s death, which allows him to go back to the Capitol after being shipped off to District 12 after the games.

#2: Lucy Gray Baird vs. Snow

In many ways, Lucy is very similar to Coriolanus and very different. Both are manipulators who’ll use anything at their disposal to survive, but while Snow is more heartless and aloof about it, Lucy ties it into her performances and has the heart to feel bad later.

In the book, Lucy Gray’s whole job is to be an actress, which she does very well. While Snow thinks that he’s manipulating her, she’s also pulling the strings behind his back. Essentially, she plays on his most vulnerable feelings by flirting with him and making him fall in love with her, which in many ways makes him ensure her vistory in the games. When they both meet after the games in District 12, she plays up his feelings even more so that she can escape to go to District 13, especially by making him more protective over her by singing songs lamenting her ex-boyfriend. Just like Snow, she isn’t exactly bad, but she definitely isn’t great. Rather, she is an anti-hero doing anything she can to survive.

#3: Panem’s government

Panem’s government is obviously supposed to be a communist government. While we got to see this from the perspective of Katniss (someone who lived in the oppressed, district class) in the original trilogy, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes gives us a different look at it from the perspective of someone who lived in the upper/mid-crust attending a prestigious school to train the new elites. It does a good job of showing how the elites will eat their own to ensure their wealth and power, and how even though communism promises equality, no one is truly equal. The tale also shows (especially in the part of the book where he’s been shipped off to District 12) that even when you have banned the free market, it will always come back in other ways. It shows how capitalism always wins in the end and how the tryannical government can’t control everything.

In conclusion, would I recommend this book? Yes. Absolutely. While I didn’t like it as much as I enjoyed the original books, it offers an interesting perspective into the world of Panem that was in some ways lacking in the original.

Until next time,

M.J.