Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" : Why Prequels Almost Never Work.

I understand the draw of returning to writing in a world that you’ve created. I can even understand the desire to write a prequel to a story that was popular. And often that works well. “Lord of the Rings” springs to mind as an author expanding his world after telling the story he had intended. There are probably even prequels that work “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins isn’t one of them.

What Happens in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins

The story begins as the 10th Hunger Games are being prepared for. Cornelius Snow is a member of a once important family who has fallen on hard times because of the war. Most of their holdings were in District 13 and its destruction has caused them to lose nearly everything.

For Cornelius, the way out of poverty is school and then university. And he is given an opportunity to earn a significant prize that will help his family by being a mentor to the pledges in the hunger games.

Each of the students is given one person to make them interesting to the capital so that they can get more interest in the hunger games. He is given Lucy Gray Baird the female pledge from District 12. Cornelius is desperate to win so he works with her more carefully than the other mentors.

This helps her considerably as he brings her food to keep her strong before the game. And over the time she is in The Capital, several things go wrong that gets some people killed before the games start. There is also a considerable amount of the capital trying to figure out how to make the games better and mostly involving the citizens of the capital.

Over this part of the book, the games slowly become more like what is in the later books. The arena they use is bombed and there isn’t time to repair, so rather than all just fighting they can hide and use strategy. People can bet on the games so care more what happens and they can send food and water to them with drones, which involves the mentors.

By the time the games start, half of the people in it are dead. That leaves are a couple obvious favorites to win, none of them are Lucy Gray Baird. But she of course wins first by hiding while other people kill each other and then by killing the last people in fairly quick succession.

During this time Cornelius also becomes infatuated by Lucy Gray Baird, who may also care for him. But when the games end, before he can see her, Cornelius is punished for cheating in the games by being forced to join the peace keepers. He is given his choice of assignments and picks District 12, hoping to see Lucy Gray Baird.

She is of course there and returning to her life but happy to see him. He gets involved in her life, including a few major problems, one that culminates in the murder of Lucy’s old boyfriend and the mayor’s daughter. Cornelius is there and so after betraying one of his friends to the capital he goes with Lucy into the north where they can live together outside of control of the capital.

Because this is the prequel to the hunger games and we know who Cornelius Snow is and it’s impossible. But the writing and the speed Cornelius turns on her so fast and inexplicably that I thought he was having some type of mental break, or perhaps was on drugs even though I knew it was coming. He has found the murder weapons so can cover up his crimes, but Lucy also knows what happens.

He tries to kill her and shoots a few times, but there is no reason to believe that the shots hit her. During that time he is bit by a snake and so has no real choice but to return to base and eventually to the capital where it’s revealed that he won’t be spending his entire life as a peacekeeper. A surprise because I was fairly certain that he spent the previous three books as something other than the president.

Why I didn’t like “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” by Suzanne Collins

The problems with this story begin with the protagonist, Cornelius Snow. He’s reasonably well written and Suzanne Collins even tries to make him likable throughout the story, and perhaps that would work if you didn’t know he was pro child murder and will continue to kill children for the rest of his life. We also know what will happen to him so there is no real suspense is the story and the Hunger Games is built on suspense and surprise.

The other thing that the series is built on is The Hunger Games, and that is entirely uninteresting. This is in part because she is trying to show an earlier version of it and perhaps because there is only so much you can do with it, especially when told from the perspective of someone who isn’t in it.

The author also focused a considerable amount of time on one of my least favorite parts of the previous books. The music. This is my problem, but if Tolkien can’t get me interested in reading music in a book, it’s unlikely Suzanne Collins is going to. And she makes far too many attempts in this book.

In the end, the relationship barely worked, the hunger games weren’t interesting, I didn’t trust or ever like Cornelius Snow both because of who I knew he would become and because of how he acted in the book and I’m not even sure what the real plot of the book was besides how the hunger games became what they were. Something that I think would have been better left unexplained.

What I liked about “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins

While the list of things I didn’t like was fairly long, that doesn’t make this a terrible book. I’d say it’s just about average, and that’s because it’s balanced out by some good writing. The conflict in the capital about the games is decent, some of the side characters are memorable, and while I never really believed the relationship between Snow and Baird, it was done well.

The writing is also good, and even the parts like the music which simply didn’t work for me are clearly well written. I hope that Suzanne Collins focuses on new stories in the future because I believe that outside of this universe in one with less child murder, she could tell more interesting stories.

Conclusion

For me, the entire idea of this book was flawed. The choice of protagonist was a bad one that made the fact that it is a prequel even worse because telegraphed the ending and made it harder for me to care about any of the characters. The choice of focusing on music didn’t work for me, and the explanation of how the hunger games started and became what they were was entirely uneasiness.

But, building on that foundation Suzanne Collins did a good job of creating a story that carried my interest at all and there were even a few places where the book rose above that, though there were not as many good stories as could have been told if it was less directly connected to other things.

So, if you’re a huge hunger games fan and really wanted to know more about how the games started or just wanted to see more child murder, then this will do that. But if the hunger games are to you, like me, just fairly good book series you don’t have any huge connection to then “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a pretty easy book to skip.