The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0)
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic Press
Published May 19, 2020

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About Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, 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.

My Review

This book has been on my reading list, but I’ve also had really mixed feelings about reading it. I really did not like President Snow in the other Hunger Games books, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to connect with him as the protagonist in a novel.

As I read the story, I struggled to connect with him. He’s really smart, and his family stands on the brink of financial ruin, a predicament he feels only he can rescue them from if he can land an opportunity to go to university and excel in some way. I felt like that made him easy to sympathize with, but he has other traits that really challenged my sympathy– which I think is what the author aimed for, so that’s a good thing.

I liked his relationship with Lucy Gray. She’s clever, charming, and scrappy. I loved the way that the story used music to tie this book to the other stories, and she’s a huge part of that.

There were a couple of moments in which I felt like Coriolanus rationalized what he wanted to do so quickly that I had trouble keeping up. I think some of this might be due to the fact that the story is told in such a close third person point of view. We really only get to know what’s going on inside Coriolanus’s head, and I didn’t always agree with his assessments of a situation, so it was hard to know sometimes whether he was being paranoid or whether there was a real risk to him.

For the most part, I still enjoyed reading the book. The connections to the Hunger Games Trilogy were rewarding for me, and I enjoyed some of the minor characters, especially Coriolanus’s cousin Tigris and, of course, Lucy Gray and the other Covey members.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Some racial diversity in the cast of characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One instance of mild profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
In District 2, when someone dies, their friends and family sprinkle breadcrumbs over their loved one’s body so they have food to eat on their journey to the afterlife.

Violent Content
In several scenes, kids or teenagers attack or kill one another. Soldiers shoot a girl after she kills another girl. Teenagers are forced into an arena in which they battle to the death until one remains standing. Several people are hanged. A boy shoots another boy. A boy shoots a girl.

Drug Content
Coriolanus and others drink a strong alcoholic drink at parties and events.

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