by Nicole Rees-Williams.
Dust off your mocking-jay pins and practise your whistling, because Suzanne Collins is back with a brand-new prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
If, like me, you were thrilled to learn of a new chapter in the Hunger Games story you probably had a few expectations about what this book was going to be. Will this story follow MagsÔÇÖ victorious year? Will the main characters be connected to Katniss? Will we get to experience a different version of the arena, such as a desert or ice theme? The answer to all these questions is no.
When I learned the novel would be following the trilogyÔÇÖs villain, the corrupt President Snow, I was not pleased to say the least. I did not want to read a Severus Snape-esque ÔÇÿpity the villain,ÔÇÖ story, especially given how vile Snow was in the original trilogy. However, the book guaranteed to follow the tenth Hunger Games, which was good enough for me, as the Games were always the part of the novel that I found the most exciting.
But the Games were not exciting in this novel. In fact, they were, dare I say it, a bit boring. As the tenth Hunger Games rolled along it was still finding its footing. The views were low, as (understandably) nobody wanted to watch children get killed. The ÔÇÿarenaÔÇÖ was also nothing to admire, as it was held in an abandoned football field where most of the tributes hid underground anyway. The tenth Hunger Games consisted of maybe one tribute sighting a day, and very little tribute on tribute conflict compared to the 74th and 75th Hunger Games that we are familiar with. The days leading up to the Games consisted of starving the tributes out before sending them in, and their conditions were so bad that most of the chosen tributes died before even entering the game.
However, seeing the Games in its most basic form gave us a behind the scenes insight into why certain decisions were put in place. Why would anybody care about who wins? Add a betting aspect. Why would you care about betting on any of them? Begin giving interviews where you get to know each tribute. Each aspect of the Games that we are familiar with is due to trial and error experienced in the past.
And of course, as you delve into the novel Snow is presented in a different light. Known as Coriolanus, or ÔÇÿCoryoÔÇÖ to those who he deems worthy, Snow is poor and struggling to keep up with the expectationÔÇÖs others have of his family name. We witness how members of the Capitol are also victims of the governments tough regimeÔÇÖs and get a glimpse into what life was like both during and post war outside of the district perspective.
Because of the pressure to live up to the Snow name, Coriolanus volunteers for the Hunger GamesÔÇÖ new mentor scheme. The scheme involves Capitol students mentoring tributes before they enter the Hunger Games and notably ÔÇô the winning tributeÔÇÖs mentor wins a scholarship which Coriolanus would not otherwise be able to afford. This scholarship is SnowÔÇÖs only chance to be able to go to college, so it is safe to say he felt defeated when assigned the female tribute from District 12 ÔÇô Lucy Gray Baird.
But Lucy GrayÔÇÖs charm and charisma entice Snow, and we begin to witness emotions that the future President of Panem has never shown before ÔÇô love. Love for the rebellious, quirky, District 12 tribute no less.
If the thought of a President Snow love story seems too far-fetched, no need to fret, because it is not a perfect love story at all. SnowÔÇÖs relationship with Lucy is filled with red flags as he constantly refers to her as an object of his possession. His controlling relationship with Lucy combined with his determination for the Snow name to stay ÔÇÿon topÔÇÖ slowly peels back the layers of this poor, young boy to reveal the corrupt man we all know and hate.
Snow is not immediately evil. He has suffered a hard life, with the added pressure of his familyÔÇÖs reputation. However, this book is not trying to say some are born evil and some are born good, but that the individual choices we make continue to add up and determine our good or bad status. As Dr. Gaul says, ÔÇÿyou can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else.ÔÇÖ Snow continuously makes horrible choices that put other people at risk. Not only does he exploit Lucy Gray for his own benefit, but he uses Sejanus, someone who fully trusted him as a friend, for the most awful choice of all. Snow had a bad life, yes, but so did Lucy Gray, so did Sejanus, and so did Katniss, yet these characters are all undeniably good people.
The message this book is trying to promote is that our choices are what make us who we are, and it is absolutely your decision which choices you make. Maybe you are not born evil, and maybe everybody has the capacity to be. But it is what we chose that locks our fate ÔÇô and that choice is up to nobody but ourselves.
Apart from the disappointing Hunger Games segment, this book has a lot to unpack in terms of messages, post war effects and the consequences of political schemes that only aid the rich. If you are picking up The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes purely for the GamesÔÇÖ aspect, you may be disappointed. But if you stick around, you can unveil a much deeper meaning. Collins claimed she wrote this book because she felt she had more to say, and Songbirds and Snakes has definitely achieved this.