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onceuponaread

THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

My Rating - 3/5

Author - Suzanne Collins


This book is the prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy. It's all about the journey of a young Snow, who ends up becoming the president of Panem.


Snow Lands On Top.

This book has details on how the Hunger Games used to take place in the beginning. The arena was literally a battle arena and most of the tributes died due to hunger, thirst or some sort of disease. Snow is chosen as the mentor of Lucy Gray and he does help her a lot and she ends up becoming the winner. And that could have been the end of the book if Lucy Gray ever made it to The Hunger Games trilogy. Hence, the story continues in a weird way.


Snow chooses to become a peacekeeper of District 12 and things are going on well between him and Lucy Gray. But he gets mixed up with the rebels and ends up being the cause of death of his friend Sejanus. This leads to a series of events which play a role in Snow becoming Snow. Snow could have chosen a completely different path but ended up being a follower of Dr. Gaul who is the definition of evil.


Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.

Lucy somehow had to be removed from the equation as she is not part of the trilogy and from this point onwards this book is rushed. It does not have a clear ending. Nevertheless, it has few explanations with respect to Snow, for example, his love for roses, his signature poison kill, and Tigris! yes Tigris is in this book too. Best of all it tells us the origin of the Hunger Games.


The book does have an interesting start. But it has a rushed ending and few things are left unexplained which is annoying, like what exactly happens to Lucy Gray? and so on. But it is clear that no matter how smart a person might be, if they get influenced by the wrong people then it impacts not only the person but a lot more people. Overall, it is an average book, could have been much much better just like The Hunger Games, but it could have been worse too. If you are a loyal fan of The Hunger Games then it’s better not to miss reading this, no matter what level of disappointment it brings.


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