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Informative. Slow. Did not fullfill my expectations.

With these words I summarize the book that, at least for me, was the most awaited of the year.

Published on May 19th, this was the book that all Hunger Games fans expected and that promised to bring news and more action focused on the still-unknown world of HG.

Who created the HG? Have it always had this format? Was Snow always the tyrant we knew in the trilogy? Or rather, is this an attempt to humanize this villain?

I honestly felt that the book was far below expectations. Despite the amount of information and clues given to us, I felt that the book was boring most of the time.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is divided into three parts and at a certain time occurs the 10th edition of the Hunger Games. And that's when we realized the big difference of these first editions relatively to the 74th edition in which Katniss and Peeta participated.

And we understand why Snow hates Katniss so much ...

These are the first HG in which there are mentors and they are trying to create ways to attract public to watch this sick spectacle. And one of the most interesting parts was precisely this: realizing how even Snow himself was shaped and helped to shape the Hunger Games up to what they became, even though at first he didn't even know the real purpose of the Hunger Games.

The book is boring on the one hand, because, of course, we are not reading the narrative told by a life-threatening tribute in the arena, but from the perspective of a mentor, a privileged Capitol boy who has nothing more to lose than the its reputation and, therefore, history advances at a different pace from the trilogy.

For a book that promised a phenomenal return from this world and for which there is confirmation of a film adaptation, it should have included scenes that made us fear for the characters and it should have shown us a more evident evolution of Snow. From what I realized there wasn't exactly a turning point for this character, he was evil from his core.

A good part of the initial book tries to convince us that his situation is understandable, with all the problems of his family and his history, but there is no mistaking it. You can see perfectly, by his inconsistent attitudes, that he was always a little psychopath and only needed a few shakes to start to inflate his ego and evolve into the tyrant he became.

This book only confirmed my anger towards Snow. He manages not to have a heart and at the same time pretend to have it (but for those who have read HG, we are not deceived by his sweet atitudes). At a certain point he has an attitude that moved me ... with anger, ANGER! I already expected him to be "all Capitol boy", but it hurts to see that he only cares about himself all the way. And I think that was exactly the Suzanne Collins's goal: to epically fail to humanize this villain, because there is no way to justify his actions. Cornelius Snow does everything thinking about himself and his family name.

If only you knew the drama that was the first 10 pages because of a t-shirt he was going to wear at the mentoring assignment ceremony... That was when I realized that the attempts to humanize and understand him were going to be unsuccessful.

The worst part of this book is that you have to read it from the perspective of a character you don't connect with and expect to die (but you know he will not die because this is a prequel and the demon lasts a few more decades). What made me go forward in the book were the little things that are being told and that, as a Hunger Games fan, feed my curiosity (and the result was a lot of post-its spent).

About Lucy Gray, the girl he mentored, I confess that my first impression was not the best, but after discovering her story and why she acted like that at Reapping, I became a fan of her! I really liked the evolution of this character (as I liked the consistent evolution of Sejanus, another young man who was a mentor).

Don't get me wrong, if you are a fan of the Hunger Games trilogy you will love the little things that are given to you in this book and you can associate them with key moments in the trilogy, but start reading the book without high expectations.

And this end ?? I was amazed at the ending, completely shocked, but it continued without changing my opinion of the whole book ...!

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Eder Mack

Librazo!

Revisado en España el 27 de junio de 2020

No he podido dejar de leerlo en 3 días. Me recuerda a cómo me sentí al leer los tres libros previos. Una excelente escritora nos vuelve a enganchar con una historia fluida, entretenida, violenta y romántica.
Librazo!

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MARIANA

Recomiendo

Revisado en España el 8 de agosto de 2021

Es un regalo, quedo encantada , habla inglés perfectamente desde pequeña , no sé si tendría 4 añitos y este libro es el que queria😉

Estefanía Ortega Suárez

Preciosa esta edición 💖

Revisado en España el 23 de junio de 2020

Me tardó muchísimo incluso pidiéndolo con tiempo y en preventa. Sé que fue por la situación de la Covid y por dónde vivo, Gran Canaria, pero la espera mereció la pena, es hermoso !!! Deseando leerlo ya 😍

Revisado en España el 21 de septiembre de 2020

La narrativa me matuvo interesada, pero lamentablemente esperaba más, como fan de la saga me ha decepcionado un poco.

Rapidez y perfecto estado

Cliente Amazon

Revisado en España el 30 de junio de 2020

Muy rápido , antes de lo previsto , embalaje perfecto........ muy recomendable si te gusta este tipo de literatura

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Rafa

Todo bien

Revisado en España el 21 de julio de 2020

Buena encuadernación y entregado en placo

Revisado en España el 26 de mayo de 2020

Perfecto

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Arkham Reviews

Fascinating Character Study

Revisado en Reino Unido el 25 de mayo de 2020

This is such a difficult novel to review, despite the fact that I actually enjoyed reading it, as I don't think that it is what a lot of fans were expecting. The Hunger Games Trilogy featured fast-paced violence and a strong female protagonist. Due to the focus on Coriolanus Snow, this prequel has an entirely different feel. It is a much slower novel, focusing more on the world-building and philosophy that would eventually shape Snow into the tyrannical president of Panem.

The world-building of this novel is captivating. It is set 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games and only 10 years after the war. Due to this, we see Capitol in a very different light. The city is still war-torn and rife with poverty. The Hunger Games exists, but is a primal shade of what it would later become. Everyone bares scars of what happened in the conflict and would rather forget what happened. I personally found it interesting to see Panem in such a state, especially as Snow and his class gradually began to shape The Hunger Games into something closer to what fans will recognise.

Yet, I did sometimes think that the novel was too heavy-handed with its call-backs. While some of the minor changes, such as the introduction of sponsors and betting to the Hunger Games, were nice little nods, other things were less subtle. This was particularly obvious in the final section of the story, in which Coriolanus witnesses the origin of The Hanging Tree song and gains an irrational hatred of Mockingjays. Yeah, that is certainly on the nose.

In terms of pacing, I do think that this book has the potential to divide fans. Due to its focus on Coriolanus, it is no where near as fast-paced as the other books. After all, Coryo is a stage removed from proceedings. He is not in the arena fighting - he is watching from the safety of the mentors' box. What this did give the time for was more of a character study. We followed Coriolanus in his daily life within the Capitol as he attended school and mentored Lucy Gray. This allowed readers to see Panem from the other side - a world that is far different from the empoverished life of Katniss Everdeen.

Yet, at times, the novel could be incredibly slow. While I was utterly captivated by the first two-thirds of the novel, the section after the climax of the 10th Hunger Games did start to lose me a little. Coriolanus's time in District 12 was surprisingly uneventful for the most part. While things did pick up again over the last 40 pages, for the most it seemed to be a bit of a come down after the excitement of the Games.

In terms of character, the novel was also perhaps a little varied. As a character study of Coriolanus Snow, it was spectacular. Coryo is a fantastically complex character. His empoverished upbringing and desire to protect his family could have made him incredibly sympathetic, but this was offset by his ambition and underlying nationalism. Even at his most vulnerable, there was always a sense that Coryo would do anything to come out on top, which prevented him from ever being truly likeable. As a villain origin story, I would say that this was incredibly effective. You could certainly understand Coriolanus, but you could never like him.

Yet, while there was a large supporting cast, most of these faded into the background. This was, in part, because Coryo was so self-serving that he never really paid much attention to him. The two that really shone were Lucy Gray and Sejanus. Lucy Gray made for a compelling love-interest who was refreshingly different from Katniss. While her motivations were occasionally a little hard to grasp, she was very lovable and served as a representation of how different Coriolanus's life could be.

Sejanus was also a fantastic character as he represented new money - a character unable to fit in with the Districts or the Capitol. Although his naivety grew more and more frustrating as the novel progressed, the situation he was in was terribly sad and held a mirror up to Coryo. Here was a person who had a similar education to Coriolanus, but his upbringing allowed him to see the world in a very different light.

All in all, I actually really enjoyed reading this novel. While I can see why some fans were disappointed, I found it to be a wonderful character study that added a lot of depth to the series's villain. It's definitely one that I wold recommend.

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Amechatclotho

A trip backwards in time - Coriolanus's POV

Revisado en Reino Unido el 20 de mayo de 2020

What this book is: A book in the form of a character sketch for the development of both President Snow, and The Hunger Games.
What this book is not: Fully immersive into the different districts, a full accounting of President Snow's rise to power.
Whilst I love The Hunger Games, and a fan of YA/NA dystopia, I was a bit disappointed in BoSaS. Told completely from Coriolanus Snow's point of view, it centres around the period shortly after the great war - when both he and the Hunger Games were in the process of change and development.
There was a noticeable attempt to conjoin this prequel to its subsequent time-delayed sequels, with often repeat callbacks to songs, names and references which are so blunt it feels like they have just been jammed in to 'lay the foundations' for The Hunger Games trilogy. It felt clumsy, grating, and quite superficial - with very little character development or depth - in fact, the most action happens in the last 20 or so pages, and feels entirely rushed at the end - and abruptly breaks off - making me wonder if Collins is planning another prequel-sequel - which would leave Coriolanus's teenage years behind and examine his development of the 30s-60's. It provides no content or understanding of the next three books in the series, which was a major disappointment. I had read expecting there to be some reference perhaps towards the end. This is a standalone book.
This is still an excellent book for understanding the structure of The Hunger Games in it's early development, but ironically, it lacks the charm and depth of any of the other three books in the series.

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Kelly McFarland

A prequel worth waiting for

Revisado en Reino Unido el 24 de mayo de 2020

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was well worth the wait for all Hunger Games. It's also a great introduction for people who have never read the original Hunger Games trilogy.

It focuses on the life of Coriolanus Snow (who in the original trilogy is a character you come to know well and dislike) it explores his younger years and the choices me hade that took him to become what he did in later books. The book also gives readers far more insight in to The Hunger Games themselves and how they came to be. Also explores more life in the Capitol which is interesting to read.

This is fantastic read for both Hunger Games fan and newer fans a like as you don't need any previous knowledge of the series to read and enjoy it.

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Jim J-R

Excellent, but hard to read at the moment

Revisado en Reino Unido el 8 de junio de 2020

The fourth novel in the Hunger Games series - a prequel set many decades before the original trilogy - tells the story of a 16 year old Coriolanus Snow, as he experiences the Hunger Games first hand as one of the first Capitol student-mentors, adopting a tribute to support through the brutal contest.

To be honest, it wasn’t the best week to be reading this. The events of the real world weighed quite heavily on my mind, and so a dystopian future in which an extremely privileged, prejudiced, and naive boy whose name is almost literally White comes of age into a world-view that we as readers already know from reading the original trilogy, did not make to comfortable reading.

Don’t get me wrong - it’s actually a fantastic story, and really well written to set up the character in a way that encourages the reader to keep going despite already knowing some significant aspects of the conclusion. Collins is absolutely on top of her game - presenting the world from a new perspective, and covering somewhat familiar ground with a new twist and a lot of worldbuilding background information naturally fitting into the plot.

It’s a really really good book, and might be one of the tales that we really need in our time. But maybe, just maybe, buy it and put it on the shelf for a few months until it will be easier to read - when we’ve started fixing our world first.

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Julian Douglas

*SPOILERS* Boring; very unlikeable character

Revisado en Reino Unido el 14 de enero de 2021

I loved the first three hunger games books so I was stoked about this.
My first thought is that it was so very slow: the hunger games actually beginning after around 200 pages.
Another thing is that the ‘protagonist’ (if you could call him that?’ Is thoroughly unlikeable. Katniss everdeen was strong, and stood up for what she believed in. Corolianus is weak and only cares about himself.
The plot is also weak. Corionalus did some messed up stuff, yet in the end everything seem to work out fine? Because certain people who previously had been selfish chose to instead be nice to him.

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