The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel)

Suzanne Collins

May 2020 · The Hunger Games Book 1 · Sold by Scholastic Inc.

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

I'm a huge fan of the hunger games trilogy, (specially catching fire which is one of my favorite books ever) so I was skeptical about reading this one bc I'm not really into villain origin stories, (specially one who we know never changed or redeemed himself at all and we already know its ending) And I'm definitely not into male lead character stories. So after finishing it, I must say that I'm very disappointed in this book. It's not a BAD book, but I really don't understand why was it necessary to tell the story of a character who we knew almost nothing about in the first place (bc it wasn't even explored in depth in the previous books) and this story starts with him already being a horrible person. It's unnecessarily long, very slow at times and entire chapters are wasted in boring details that are very irrelevant to the story (bc we know the ending) while other MAJOR plot twists that deserved way more time, are told in a very rushed way in literally 1 line. I don't recommend it.

I almost put the book down about halfway through because I felt like the storyline progressed very slowly but by the end of the book I could appreciate why it progressed the way it did. I still thought about the events in the book days after finishing and I’m hoping that the author has more books to add to this series in the years to come. If you are thinking of reading this book, I suggest you do so after reading/watching the hunger games, catching fire and mockingjay books/movies

This book perfectly revived my love for the series again. Lucy Gray is a performer turned hunter and, seeing everything from Snows perspective helps understand the character more. I can feel myself morphing into my teen self once more, my final form.

About the author

Suzanne Collins is the author of the bestselling Underland Chronicles series, which started with Gregor the Overlander. Her groundbreaking young adult novels, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, were New York Times bestsellers, received wide praise, and were the basis for four popular films. She returned to the world of Panem with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Year of the Jungle, her picture book based on the year her father was deployed in Vietnam, was published in 2013 to great critical acclaim. To date, her books have been published in fifty-three languages around the world.