Book Review: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Let me start off by saying that I put reading this book off since its release because reading is an escape and Panem highlights the worst of our society and our fears. Basically, I was afraid of reading something that was grounded too much in “the real world” (not that we live in a Panem-esque dystopia, but The Hunger Games is a critique and a warning so…I knew reading this came with the great risk of being slapped in the face by nuanced reality).

But it was time. I needed to see for myself how Suzanne Collins painted the character of a young Coriolanus Snow.

Was he a good person as a kid, corrupted by a world in ruin? Did he get a taste for power and control through the course of some cold, gruesome war?

I needed to know when and how Snow became the cruel authoritarian we see in The Hunger Games.

This is not a character wronged by the world. This is the chronicle of a corruption arc, the tragic freefall of a boy left to fend for himself and his surviving family members (a grandmother and a sister) who willfully chose cruelty under the guise of surviving. The simple fact is “Snow lands on top” and it clearly doesn’t matter what’s beneath so long as the Snow family doesn’t fall from grace—especially Coriolanus.

The fascinating thing about The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes is the difference between Coriolanus and his cousin Tigris. Both experienced the same hardships and losses, yet only one Snow child became the cunningly vicious authoritarian we know from The Hunger Games. And it was this contrast that I loved. Even despite knowing who Snow is, Collins wrote such a captivating plot and character that I almost believed there was hope for him—that there might be redemption until some other tragedy.

So basically, I feel like a fool for waiting so long to read this and I learned that corruption arcs can be just as delicious as redemption. It was a morbid curiosity that kept me hooked, that need to know just how far toward the abhorrent end of morality that character will go, that made TBOSAS one of my favorite reads this year.