Published: 19 May 2020 (print)/19 May 2020 (audio) 
Publisher: Scholastic Press/Scholastic Audio
Pages: 528/16 hrs and 16 mins
Narrator: Santino Fontana
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4.5 Stars
Ambition will fuel him.
Competition will drive him.
But power has its price.
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
I loved seeing the Hunger Games from the outside perspective, especially these early days before the main arena, the cameras everywhere, and the full control of the game makers to make sure there was always action for the audience.
Fighting to get the capital to care about the games ten years in is a great look at how these early years started what we know the Hunger Games to be. It could have all faded away. It could easily have been a short lived endeavour but the hate of those in power felt orchestrated something that continues for another 65 years.
Mentors, tributes, rewards, interviews are all in their infancy and having the games play out from an outside perspective instead of the players is interesting, especially in terms of emotional attachment. We aren’t there to feel the fear of the tributes, of their actions against one another or how the game makers influence things from omnipotent and mysterious places. We have no internal thoughts of tributes, only the apathetic, coerced, and invested mentors. There is only what is shown on screen and what Snow is privy to which adds a different kind of tension and uncertainty.
I love that there is no future books, only to fill in history we already know about. While it can be argued we didn’t need to have these prequels, there is something powerful in showing how something like the Hunger Games started. What political and social situations come from those in power having control and hate towards those around them.
There are references to the future and what we know from other characters. And while it can be a pointed reference for the readers I think it goes a way to explain why Snow acts the way he does towards people in the original as well. His own history getting in the way and mocking him even before he knows why.
Collins is wonderful because you never get to sympathise with Snow like you’d think with a prequel. There are times when you have moments thinking he is a poor and suffering but then it’s like Collins instinctively knows your thoughts and descends from on high and says stop that by showing Snow to be just as much as a horrible person as you think and know him to be.
It’s easy to see how Snow becomes who he becomes, even 65 years later. He is already a bad person, but you can see him becoming vindictive and controlling. How he thinks he’s betrayed and how that shapes his actions then and in the future. He is entitled, thinks he is owed things, and as the book goes on you see how possessive he is. Everything we know him to be.
I love how Collins dropped The Hunger Games and disappeared only to re-emerge ten years later and drop another banger on us. This prequel doesn’t take anything from the power of the original trilogy and only makes it more impactful – a benefit I think from having the large gap between years. I am so keyed up to read Sunrise on the Reaping I know she is going to have done another amazing job.
You can purchase The Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes via the following
Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
