By: Aliana Romo

‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ was written in 2020 by Suzanne Collins and is a prequel to the Hunger Games series. This book revolved around 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, who was the president of Panem in the original books. It shows the backstory of his character and what the early days of the Hunger Games were like. During this book he gets offered to mentor the kids in the Hunger Games, which has never happened before. He mentors a woman named Lucy Gray Baird who has currently been selected to participate in the Hunger Games.

While reading this book I really enjoyed how it goes deep into the backstory of Coriolanus Snow. It showed a different side to him and how his character got twisted, which was not shown in the original books. His character had a lot more backstory and it showed everything he went through, and how he got the way he was.

In addition to this, I really enjoyed reading this book because of all the details it included about the Hunger Games. Originally there hadn’t been that much information about what the games were like in the beginning, so being able to read about it in such detail was very important. It showed what life was like before the war and what it was like soon after the war, which had not been portrayed before. The book overall included many details about things that were shown in the original books, which helped me understand things more clearly.

Another thing that I found interesting about this book was Suzanne Collins writing; it helped put the book in a new perspective. It had the perspective of Coriolanus who grew up in the capitol, not in the districts. It showed how he didn’t think much of the Hunger Games, and then ended up liking them more, after realizing how twisted they really were. Suzanne Collins did a great job of giving such vivid details of the capitol and the districts. She also wrote on many serious topics such as power, mortality, relationships and the lengths that people go to, to survive.

Overall, I found ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ to be an amazing book, it was very captivating and continued the Hunger Games series very well. It was well written and showed new in depth details about the story in general.