The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games…

Title: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Author: Suzanne Collins
Published: May 2020
Pages: 541
Publisher: Van Goor (I read this book in Dutch)
Rating: 9/10

First posted in Dutch on June 28 2020 and updated on March 24 2025.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, 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.

When opening the book you see at first several quotes. Quotes from a number of philosophers. Many of them are my favourite philosophers with also my favourite statements of theirs. Back in uni I studied them and wrote quite a few essays about them. So I was already completely in my element and of course very curious what I would notice of those quotes/thoughts in the story. And yes, the philosophical thoughts certainly returned in the story. In fact, it formed a strong basis for the book.

Before I go deeper into the philosophy, I first want to discuss the story itself. The author’s narrative voice is just as fantastic as when she wrote The Hunger Games. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes made me realize again why The Hunger Games-series is so powerful. Reading Collins’ new YA book gave me the same feeling as I had back in the day when I read a YA book for the first time. It also reminded me of the reason why I love reading YA so much. I didn’t want to stop reading! What a book. The story had me completely in its grip. Even when I put the book aside for a moment, my thoughts were still with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes every free moment.

Something I missed in the previous trilogy was how The Hunger Games came to be. I never thought I would ever say it… but how lucky the tributes of the 74th Hunger Games were compared to the 10th Hunger Games. In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes we watch the 10th Hunger Games and what horrors happened there. The whole process itself is already incredibly horrible. Apart from the tributes and the people of the Capitol, no one really knew what happened in the Hunger Games. Largely because the country was still recovering from the war and the rebels. The tributes were treated like animals immediately after the penance and no longer like people. In addition, they had to survive in harsh conditions even before the games.
After reflecting even more on this book I released it wasn’t just technology that was the reason for how the tributes of the 74th were treated differently. It’s also just to create more spectacle. The way how humanisation was used to build the greatest show. Feet the big, so we cast feast later. So maybe the 10th and the 74th aren’t that different, except for presentation. 

Corionalus Snow. In the trilogy you get to know him as President Snow. But in this book you get to know him as an 18-year-old man. The beauty of Collins’s way of telling the story is that she doesn’t condone his behavior. She simply tells the story of how a young man became president.

And this is where philosophy comes in. You see a dichotomy in Snow’s character. He clearly struggles with the question: what is good? It is not good what happens to the tributes, but it also ensures that there is no chaos in Panem. The inhabitants are then controllable. So it is not surprising that Snow constantly doubts what he is doing. Because he does not want to be a traitor. But to whom does he not want to be a traitor? Again the question arises: what is good? I was genuinely amazed at how Collins managed to incorporate various philosophers into a YA fiction story.

The grim atmosphere, power relations and tension were clearly palpable to me as a reader. However, the tension arc is very different from the trilogy. The largest part of the story plays very much into the philosophical works. For someone who is not into that, I can imagine that the story feels a bit slow from time to time. But my thoughts did not stand still. I was constantly analysing everything and that is one of the many reasons why I absolutely love this book. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the YA book that you should definitely read, especially in this current world state.

Love,