Hi there! My name is Ani and this is Reader’s Report, where I review a book that I’ve read recently and explain exactly how I feel about it to you lovely people.

First off, I hope everyone had a lovely break! I certainly did, being off this campus changes my perspective on living. 

This week’s book is “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins, which, no, I hadn’t read until after the movie came out, so feel free to make fun of me. I know. I don’t care. Long story short, I saw one too many edits on my For You page and decided that reading this book was a priority and I am very glad that I made it one.

In case you haven’t heard, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a prequel to the “Hunger Games” series that was released a couple years ago and tells the story of Coriolanus Snow (yes, that is his real name), the future President of Panem. You get to read about the beginnings of the Hunger Games and just how twisted the story of the games really is. Although written in the third person, the book focuses on life from Snow’s perspective, which makes for a very interesting, and aggressively morbid, storytelling experience. 

The thing that really got me interested in this novel was peoples’ reactions to it. A lot of the time, when you see authors releasing prequels or sequels to really famous novels (“Harry Potter”), it’s just a cash grab and sucks (“The Cursed Child”). The author completely destroys all character development and essentially releases the book for the shock factor (J.K. Rowling). But for Suzanne Collins, this was seemingly not the case. People were thrilled with this book. The reviews on Goodreads were reaching four stars and people on TikTok would not shut up about it. Nevertheless, when I picked it up, I was anticipating disappointment, but luckily, I didn’t get it. 

Despite the plot being very interesting, the characters were the most interesting part of this novel. Snow as a character is scarily human. He lets his fear get the best of him and yet refuses to admit that he fears anything. It wasn’t until the last few chapters where I could really say that he was insane because, at the beginning, he was just a product of his unstable environment. A boy who had no idea how to live in a world without war. He was awful at understanding his feelings and as a result, he let his prejudice against the districts get the best of him every time.

The best way I can analyze his personality is through his relationships with other characters so I’m going to start with Sejanus, a boy who was Snow’s best friend, even though Snow would never admit that. Throughout the entire novel, Snow and Sejanus behave as best friends from the eyes of an onlooker. The only way that you wouldn’t know they were friends was if you were hearing Snow’s thoughts, where he would tear Sejanus apart in every interaction they had, making comments about his district upbringing or his rich lifestyle that Snow had lost. Despite Snow almost getting the point and realizing that he cared about Sejanus, the influence of Dr. Gaul, the psychotic planner of the Games, and that prejudice and self-entitlement that he held onto so tightly eventually caused both of their downfalls. His biggest fault was the fact that he could not let go of that ego! He quite literally thought the world revolved around him and people were constantly thinking about where he was and what he was doing. And you know what that’s a symptom of? Anxiety. So yes, what I’m saying is Snow essentially caused the destruction of innocent lives because he was so anxious all the damn time. 

Now let’s think about Lucy Gray, Snow’s dream girlfriend. She was a free-roaming, ballad-singing country girl who was probably the only person in the entirety of Panem who had freedom, from Snow’s POV anyway. So what does this mean for Coriolanus, a guy who cannot seem to get a handle on his spiraling thoughts? She’s a threat. She will survive anything in his eyes because she was able to survive the Hunger Games and can do anything she wants. Why does that make him nervous though? Because of the lack of control, there is no longer anything holding her back from breaking up with him (omg how dare she), leaving Panem (god forbid!), and worst of all, dating other people, like her clinically insane ex Billy Taupe that she explicitly said she wouldn’t go back to [she’s clearly lying! (she was not)].

On a more serious note, this idea also blends in with the Mockingjay imagery (that I am completely obsessed with and it would take another four pages to discuss but whatever). Snow HATES the Mockingjays. They’re a result of cross-breeding, which was not facilitated by the Capitol, between a Jabberjay (Capitol made) and a Mockingbird (in nature). What you get is a bird that can pick up a tune from someone’s voice and sing it back to them and is unable to be caught by the Capitol. I really hope this sounds familiar but to put it plainly, Lucy Gray is an extension of the Mockingjay. As the book progresses, Snow gets more and more locked into this comparison and it leads to his inevitable demise where he loses his mind, hallucinates a poisonous snake biting him, and tries to shoot at Lucy Gray after she leaves for 5 minutes. Because what else would you do in this situation?

So, would I recommend this book? Yes! Especially if you’ve read the Hunger Games series. It’s a really great continuation of the story and I have barely scraped the surface with all the easter eggs and foreshadowing that’s in the book. Suzanne Collins is a fantastic author and she does a great job of world building and keeping interesting and humane characters in her novels. Because if we’re being real, a three-month situationship would be anyone’s last straw.

Well anyway, I’ll see you next time.