In anticipation of the upcoming movie adaptation, I went ahead and read this prequel novel. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes focuses on a young Coriolanus Snow—the eighteen-year old before he becomes the villainous and lawful evil President Snow that we see in The Hunger Games trilogy. Ballad tells us about how Coriolanus becomes one of the first ever mentors in the Games, a trial project where they decide to recruit the Academy’s brightest minds to help mentor the tributes from the districts. However, the Snow family has fallen on hard times, so Coriolanus has a lot to juggle between being a mentor, helping his family maintain appearances, and pursue his own growing ambitions. Although the book provides a nice viewpoint into the early world of Panem and tackles some eternal questions on morality and human goodness, Ballad as a whole fell flat for me, being somewhat short of an enjoyable and well-developed read.
The novel does boast a large cast of characters; besides Coriolanus, there are several fellow students who are also mentors in the Games, and several tributes. This makes it hard to keep track of who is who, especially when the deaths begin. Coriolanus of course has a core group of a few students—of these, Sejanus is the most eminently likeable, given that he is portrayed and characterized by his Lawful Good nature of being a bleeding heart. Sejanus definitely grew on me, but his hyper-goodness was almost comical, since it came off as so naïve in the environs of the Capitol. His worldview is incredibly black and white, lacking any sort of nuance; and part of that is due to his naïve understanding of the world, but contrasted with Snow’s ruthlessness, it seems unrealistic almost. Still, he deserved better than to be associated with Coriolanus, and I wasn’t very surprised by his character’s arc, given what we know of the future President Snow. Tigris was also an interesting character here, but we mostly just see her fawn over Coriolanus; perhaps it was an attempt on the author’s part to humanize him somewhat, but it didn’t really work since we are already aware of Snow’s future… baggage, shall we say. Lucy Gray Baird, the tribute extraordinaire herself, was an interesting figure, and I enjoyed her portrayal as someone who isn’t necessarily the strongest tribute but still one who is resourceful, cunning, and adaptive; she manages to exhibit her strengths quite well in the Tenth Hunger Games. I will say that I appreciated Collins depicting Coriolanus as a calculating, coldhearted villainous psychopath from the start, as opposed to going for a redemption arc or transformation motive like you often see in these types of narratives. However, the book gets a million negative points for its pathetic excuse at the ‘romance’ between Lucy Gray and Coriolanus; it never managed to fully convince me, yet so much of the plot and character development hinges on the acceptance of the romance angle.
The setting of the Capitol provides a decent backdrop to the narrative; given that we don’t know much of how the Capitol reacts to and develops after the rebellion and ensuing war, it was fascinating to read about how the Capitol’s citizens also struggle and succumb to some pretty horrific ends to survive due to the rebellion’s siege. Still, while it almost makes you want to sympathize with the Capitol, hearing about it through Coriolanus’s self-righteous lens only soured me on the Capitol further. However, some of the later scenes in District 12 become almost comical with how much of it is a callback to the original trilogy. Clearly, Ballad is aimed at fans who are nostalgic for the originals, but it leaves this novel feeling more like a remix than an original work.
Collins’s writing style also seemed quite odd here. Sure, it is slightly improved from the extremely barebones style of the original YA trilogy, but it isn’t quite to the level of literary fiction either. There are several points that felt very YA to me—for instance, a character would say or do something, or Coriolanus would think of a certain event. Then, immediately after that line, the book would explicate the underlying thought process to the reader, as if they were too stupid to figure it out themselves. This happened enough times for me to be extremely annoyed about it. Moreover, some of the dialogue is very abrupt and periodic, with characters speaking in phrases or half-sentences, and sometimes not sounding very realistic for their role. When I get a chance to upload the highlights from my e-reader, I’ll provide some examples.
The plot and its pacing were also all over the place. The first two-thirds or so of the book proceed at a snail’s pace… not much happens. We mainly follow Coriolanus as he experiences being a mentor and getting to know Lucy Gray while the plot’s action happens around them. We even get scenes of Coriolanus being mindlessly bored at the Academy or thinking through his homework. Why? This book could have been a lot shorter had Collins or the editors cut out some of the fluff. Moreover, I hinted at this earlier, but the plot was extremely predictable. We know who Coriolanus Snow is going to become and how he becomes that person from the original trilogy, so I saw little point in getting worked up over certain characters when their ends were imminently clear from the beginning. Some of the events were also rather convenient for Coriolanus—hell, the family motto of ‘Snow lands on top’ came off as extremely over-the-top and ridiculous because of how conveniently things fell into place without explanation or reason.
If this novel were a standalone and not a prequel to one of the most well-known YA series, this wouldn’t have been half bad. Indeed, Collins imports some heavy-handed themes of human goodness, absolute morality, and the natural state of man—just take a look at the epigraphs that start the book. These are hefty ideas, no doubt. Yet, because this is a prequel, Ballad quickly became overwhelmed with references and callbacks to the original. District 12 popped up in various circumstances a suspicious amount of times—of course Coriolanus mentors the female tribute from District 12, no wonder there, but we see it over and over. Even Sejanus’s character arc is explicitly detailed if you look at the first few paragraphs on his name source’s Wikipedia page. There are dozens of references sprinkled to the original trilogy per page, what amounted to a nauseating barrage of familiar phrases, terms, and even songs. At one point, the characters stop to point out the ‘katniss’ plant—yes, we get it, we’re reading the prequel to The Hunger Games! Thank you for the reminder, I almost forgot! Again, this would be fine if it were just a handful of times, but this happens several times per chapter at the very least.
Moreover, the lofty ideas about human nature and morality are so heavy-handed that Ballad is practically dripping with them. As someone who is decently familiar with Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, among other Enlightenment thinkers, the themes come off as heavy-handed instead of thought-provoking. Read the epigraphs and that pretty much sums it all up, anyway; it doesn’t get much more complex than the sentiments expressed there. I do appreciate the ideas Collins wants to draw attention to, particularly about human nature and whether our innate humanity is inherently good or evil; however, she could have explored the ideas much more deftly. From the reader’s point of view, I almost felt like I was being spoon-fed the ideas.
To sum it up, some parts were interesting and even a fun look at the Capitol of the previous era—seeing how things came to be a certain way in the present trilogy was enjoyable enough. It was also a bit predictable and over-the-top at times. The characters and plots could have been much better, though I suppose they weren’t absolutely terrible either. This book doesn’t inspire much strong feeling in me, so I think it’s going to have to be a ‘meh’ from me, and not recommended—unless you’re a superfan who can’t fathom not reading the prequel, I guess.
