{"id":4813,"date":"2026-07-08T15:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2026-06-16T21:50:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:50:58","slug":"book-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/08\/book-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2020
\nAuthor: Suzanne Collins
\nLength: 517 pages<\/p>\n

I\u2019m skeptical of any franchise that feels the need to explore the world of their original, highly successful franchise with a prequel. Often, it adds nothing other than some background that ultimately doesn\u2019t matter because we all know how things start with the original stories. That being said, after watching and enjoying the movie adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2023), I figured I would give the book a shot. Once again, Suzanne Collins broke my expectations with some of the best writing and continued world-building in literature.<\/p>\n

Following the rise of the main villain of the Hunger Games<\/em> trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em> provides engaging and well thought out plot twists that show the reader the specific circumstances that led to the rise of Coriolanus Snow. That I was actually rooting for this kid all the while knowing what he would eventually become is quite a feat to pull off. Foreshadowing aside, there was the same heart in this book that made one empathize with Katniss in the original trilogy. Unfortunately, despite being given the chance to stop the Hunger Games entirely, Snow instead uses them to build his career.<\/p>\n

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em> excels in showing that even among the elite, there is a vast difference between the haves and have-nots. Perhaps this is the whole point: it\u2019s a metaphor for the culture wars we\u2019re fighting to distract us from the class war we should be fighting. Who cares if someone is from District 12 or District 1 if the formerly entitled individuals from the Capitol are basically in the same situation? The trouble is that once someone like Snow has a taste of the good life, he\u2019ll do whatever it takes to get it back.<\/p>\n

A rare prequel that expands its social commentary from the original books, I give The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em>\u00a04.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Year: 2020 Author: Suzanne Collins Length: 517 pages I\u2019m skeptical of any franchise that feels the need to explore the world of their original, highly successful franchise with a prequel. Often, it adds nothing other than some background that ultimately doesn\u2019t matter because we all know how things start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,54],"tags":[2282,55,4580,4578,4579,651,8,4577,3727,895],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-book","tag-2282","tag-book","tag-class-war","tag-coriolanus-snow","tag-culture-war","tag-prequel","tag-review","tag-suzanne-collins","tag-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes","tag-the-hunger-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4817,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/4817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}