Redheaded Reviews: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Collins does the impossible: She makes young Coriolanus Snow a sympathetic character. Don't get me wrong there are still times you want to whack him on the head for some of the things that go through his head and how he feels he is above it all, but honestly that last part comes directly from his grandmother who has beaten into his head that a Snow is practically royalty his entire life. There is even a moment in the book when his grandmother says "Remember, Coriolanus, that wherever you go, you will always be a Snow. No one can ever take that from you.” He wondered if that wasn’t the problem. The impossibility of being a Snow in this postwar world. What it had driven him to do. But he only said, “I’ll try to one day be worthy of it.” Maybe if his mother had lived she would have steered him in a different direction, as she was a sweet and kind woman. But as a young man in this book, he is not the fully formed evil president from the Hunger Games books that went after Katniss. You'll watch as he is molded unwittingly by the devious and truly evil Dr. Gaul the Gamemker who has plans for him.

The Dean of Students, Dean Highbottom hates Coriolanus because of bad blood between him and his father and he's taking it out on him so Coriolanus winds up with the girl from District 12. This year for the first time they are using students as mentors and doing an interview segment to promote interest in the Hunger Games. This is the tenth games and no one is watching. They will also have a host. Coriolanus is worried about his chances because he needs to do well in this thing in order to get a university scholarship. Then he watches as his Ruby Gray Baird is called out for District 12 and she saunters in a colorful dress-wearing makeup and tosses a snake down a girl's dress. Then she sings a haunting song and Coriolanus sees his chances going up.

Tigris, his cousin who works to support the family any way she has to who still manage to live in the ancestral penthouse because they owe no rent or taxes on it, tells him to go and meet her at the train station and to bring her something so he decides to bring her one of his grandmother's roses. The next night he goes to see her and Sejanus is there with food for the tributes but he who is from District 2, where he moved from won't eat any of the food he brought. Coriolanus, who is starving eats one of the sandwiches with Lucy Gray. He sees an advantage in being friends with Sejanus, a rich kid who wishes he still lived in District 2.

Snow comes up with the idea of allowing people to buy food for the tributes and betting on the tributes. It becomes a huge hit. When they go down to see the stadium some rebels had set up some bombs to go off and people died. Three of them ran off and were killed for trying to escape. So the competition is nearly cut in half and a few of the mentors haven't made it to the opening of the Hunger Games.

Snow goes through quite a transformation. Any humanity in him is dead by the end of the book. Granted he believes as does his cousin that "Snow Lands on Top" which is something that said to each other to get through the war that they continued to use in the hard times that followed. You feel sorry for the young man who is starving and doesn't see a future for himself. He falls in love with Lucy Gray his tribute and will do anything to keep her alive in the Games. Lucy Gray is a Covy a part of a group of roving musicians where she is the lead singer and a wild child who does as she pleases. She's smart as a whip and falls for Snow too. Sejanus is an innocent young man who is the truest idealist who wants to save the world, much to his parent's chagrin. Snow keeps getting him out of trouble but there might come a time when he can't save him. This book is a worthy addition to the Hunger Games collection. I was captivated from page one to the last page. Snow is such a complex character that we get to watch devolve into the horrendously evil creature he would become. I give this book five out of five stars.

Quotes

Your own father used to say those people only drank water because it didn’t rain blood.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 77)

What young brains lack in experience they sometimes make up for in idealism. Nothing seems impossible to them.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 93-4)

I’ve no use for liars. What are lies but attempts to conceal some sort of weakness.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 114)

Courage in battle was often necessary because of someone else’s poor planning.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 182)

Without the threat of death it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson. What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, eduction, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in his natural state.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 243)

Did you tell your best friend his crush was a cannibal? Never a rule book when you needed one.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 251)

“Remember, Corolanus, that wherever you go, you will always be a Snow. No one can ever take that from you.” He wondered if that wasn’t the problem. The impossibility of being a Snow in this postwar world. What it had driven him to do. But he only said, “I’ll try to one day be worthy of it.”

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 327)

This was his life now. Digging for worms and being at the mercy of the weather. Elemental. Like an animal. He knew this would be easier if he wasn’t such an exceptional person. The best and the brightest humanity had to offer,

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 495)

And he didn’t like love, the way it had made him feel stupid and vulnerable. If he ever married, he’d choose someone incapable of swaying his heart. Someone he hated, even, so they could never manipulate him the way Lucy Gray had. Never make him jealous. Or weak.

-Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes p 516)