I had high expectations for The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins because of the original trilogy and…it lived up to them! I’d give it an 8/10. The only downside of this book is that the exciting part doesn’t start until very late in the book.


This book was told from the perspective of the one and only President Snow. He is in his last year at the academy and hopes to win the prize that will help him into university, which he otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. A way that he can win this prize is if he mentors the winner of the 10th Annual Hunger Games. When he is assigned the girl from district 12, the lowest of the low, he is embarrassed but still determined to win. The story continues as he tries to help Lucy Gray, the tribute, win the Games.

***SPOILERS BELOW**

As much as I enjoyed the book, I felt as though the romance was forced. Coriolanus Snow is a manipulator and what he does to Lucy Gray, and later to his friend Sejanus and Sejanus’ parents is clearly wrong, although neither of them know. All in all, this was an excellent book to shows us the psychologically twisted brain of Coriolanus Snow as a teenager.