What about the populist BookTube opinions?

And last but not least, let's see what the author has to say...

Scholastic's Official Interview:

• "I thought a lot about the period after the Civil War here in the United States and also the post-World War II era in Europe. People trying to rebuild, to live their daily lives in the midst of the rubble. The challenges of food shortages, damaged infrastructure, confusion over how to proceed in peacetime. The relief that the war has ended coupled with the bitterness toward the wartime enemy. The need to place blame," Collins said.

• "Well, I thought about Wordsworth's line, “The Child is father of the Man.” The groundwork for the aging President Snow of the trilogy was laid in childhood. Then there’s Locke, who’s all over this book, with his theory of tabula rasa, or blank slate, in which we’re all products of our experiences. Snow’s authoritarian convictions grew out of the experiences of his childhood, as did his complicated relationships with mockingjays, food, the Hunger Games, District 12, District 13, and women. So, you rewind and plant the seeds."

Q&A New York Times regarding the original trilogy/movies (2018):

• Where the inspiration from the Hunger Games trilogy originated from: "I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me."

• "In The Hunger Games Trilogy, the districts rebel against their own government because of its corruption. The citizens of the districts have no basic human rights, are treated as slave labor, and are subjected to the Hunger Games annually. I believe the majority of today’s audience would define that as grounds for revolution. They have just cause but the nature of the conflict raises a lot of questions. Do the districts have the authority to wage war? What is their chance of success?"

With some rare, bonus insights from the editors!

How To Judge a Prequel

Critical Questions

1. Who was the intended audience for this book?

2. Does this enhance or detract from the pre-established world-building? (aka did we need a Coriolanus Snow prequel or was this about money?)

3. How was the book generally received?

4. Are comparisons to the Hunger Games valid?

5. Does this story, its characters, and the overall writing hold up independent of the original trilogy?

6. Was the underlying messaging or theme of this book worth discussing?

So there is a school of literary theory that you should totally disregard the author and their original intent because stories, once put in the world, belong to its readers. Divorcing a story from the historical and social context in which it is read and judging it solely as a static piece of literary work is another. I have always thought that, while worth mentioning during a general book discussion to parse particular ways of analyzing a text, these approaches are utter bullshit. We live in an age of information and unprecedented access to authors. You can't take the eggs out of the mayonnaise (is how I imagine that phrase goes).

Do I think Suzanne Collins wrote TBoSaS in response to the Trump era or should be viewed through that lens? Not completely. One, that's just not how publishing and writing timelines works. Two, it's clear from earlier interviews that her idea of Panem draws from a number of different historical references, much like how Margaret Atwood based the chauvinist world of Gilead on real world corollaries. But I do think it is worth looking at the political environment at the time the book was released. TBoSAS dropped May 19, 2020. Having a book launch amidst a global pandemic is far from ideal. Like sure, people are stuck indoors and may have more time to read, but the usual hype necessary to bolster book sales proceeding a launch was lost in the fray, along with the ability to promote via a book tour. Plus the sustained protests in June and the harrowing fallout airing live on televisions and phone screens alike probably put a book about a totalitarian state and burgeoning dictator at the absolute bottom of the list for leisure reading. I think this explains why there hasn't been an explosion of responses on the internet, like there really should have been at any other time. Bloggers and YouTubers should have been rabidly competing to upload their hot takes, knowing that a Hunger Games fanbase would be there to lap it up. Instead, I think what we got was an exhausted public unable to muster the energy to analyze a fictional dystopia whilst amidst an actual revolution.

For me though, that meant TBoSAS hit at the right moment for me. It was, as Vox noted, a nightmare I could put down or wake from, unlike the one on my phone or outside my door. I binge-read the Hunger Games in 2010, the summer after Catching Fire was published and you could get it as a trilogy set. I was already a little too old for the series, being a rising college sophomore and working my first 8-5 job. I was all too conscious that I was more entertained by a dramatic story of teen gladiators than I was critical of the world that was forcing them to perform and that I was more intrigued by the romance than I was about bucking the status quo. The books were my bread and circuses while I enjoyed the comforts and privileges of a paid internship. This time around, embroiled in civil unrest, having put my body on the line at protests and intending to continue doing so, Suzanne Collins struck a nerve with TBoSaS. I felt like the writing had improved and it was written for a slightly older audience. Katniss' story was a first person narrative on how you begin to realize the world around you is wrong and figuring out how to engage with it. Snow's story was a thinly veiled introductory philosophy text.

While it certainly wasn't a subtle way of outlining the book's main themes (what is the function of government, are humans inherently violent, do people only act morally when rules are enforced, etc.), it was still extremely well done to me. Part of this is probably also that I listened to the audiobook and didn't have to read the text. I sure as hell skipped over the philosophy parts of 1984 back in gradeschool. But the framing wasn't terrible. Sure, it happened in the context of essays or lessons, but the application of those lessons were happening immediately and compellingly within the story. There were stakes in these philosophic musings. Coriolanus' future and Lucy Gray's life hung in the balance of how power maintains its control and how environment shapes individual choices. These are also worthy questions of discussion to have given the political moment within the US and it's impossible not to think of the book without that lens.

So both critical and populist reviews both used a comparison of the crisp pacing in the Hunger Games versus the slow burn of TBoSaS to be ever in HG's favor. I will agree the pacing was a problem. Despite feverishly binge-listening the 16 hour audiobook in two days, Act 3 sagged. To be clear, I liked the plodding discourse and loss of crispness in TBoSAS (which I blame on the fact that I am nearly 30). I wanted Act 3 to have as much time and development as Acts 1 and 2. To me, Act 3 was rushed. I didn't really believe the quick turn around betrayal Snow made against Lucy was earned (though I hella believed the one he made against Sejanus) because it happened after like two hours of hiking in the forest when it took hundreds of pages of development to get there. But I think the inherent flaw in this critique is trying to compare HG and TBoSaS. They are different stories with a different point to make. Hunger Games was the perspective of the oppressed. TBoSaS is the perspective of the oppressors. They complement each other. This prequel enriches the world of the original trilogy without falling into the Star Wars prequels midichlorians-ruining-the-mythos trap or Fantastic-Beasts-doesn't-add-anything-also-JK-is-cancelled trap or the-Hobbit-movies-were-a-bad-gratuituous-cash-grab trap.

A big indicator of whether a reader liked TBoSAS seems to be predicated on whether they bought into a Snow prequel in the first place. In the review above by YouTuber, Merphy Napier, she indicated she did not want to read a book that humanized the villain (and acknowledged TBaSAS didn't fail as badly as it could have at that). I would argue that TBoSAS does not play the if-only-Hitler-got-accepted-to-art-school game. Snow's motivations aren't justified as good by the text. If anything they explicitly show how motivated he is by self-interest. But it does help you understand how he came to make those choices. Sometimes good or moral choices aren't available in the world you live in, but motivations and intent are important to consider. I thought Collins presented the development of Snow's dictatorial philosophy pretty well. It echoes the patriarchal tone of many real world dictators. You can have seemingly good reasons for bad policies. If you don't think Snow's character was realistic, come on. There's no way you could convince me Coriolanus Snow would not be the guy from your high school saying, "All Lives Matter," and, "I support the George Floyd protests but the violence and rioting has to be stopped" on Facebook. This is where evil starts, folks. One can be born a sociopath or psychopath, but a dictator is created by ideas and society and the conviction of being the only one who can fix it.

Petty(ish) Hot Takes

1. It didn't need a romance.

2. Why is Collins so sex shame-y?

Trigger Warning: TBoSaS (like in the original Hunger Games) very lightly alludes to sexual coercion as a means for young women to get supplies during times of hardship.

What I don't get is why this is the only representation of sex in the Hunger Games universe. Katniss' relationships and even Lucy Gray's are presented as chaste. These are two very big extremes. If Collins is going to explicitly mention sex in one of its most darkest lights, why is she coy about the flip side of teens just being horny? You going to tell me all those times Peeta and Katniss slept next to each other, he never got a boner? Like, there's a lot of middle ground between being taken advantage of sexually and having a (usually unremarkable) sexual experience with your first girlfriend/boyfriend. I don't need every YA to be a sex education PSA (though I would prefer YA authors make an effort to normalize condom use), but it's weird there's no positive or even neutral (or non-hetero) mentions of sex. And despite the oppression and poverty, the world is presented as technologically advanced. I get characters not wanting to bring children into an oppressive world and even if contraceptives and abortions aren't available to citizens, surely they know at least some basic preventive measures? Tortoise shells weren't great or anything, but old fashioned wisdoms like pulling out is at least 78% effective (according to Planned Parenthood). Also. These are horny teenagers. A handjob or oral never occurred to them LIKE IT HAS FOR PLENTY OF REAL LIFE TEENS? Are you telling me, that 18 year old possessive-ass Snow didn't expect a 30-second handjob any time he does something nice for Lucy Gray in District 12? This guy never sticks his hand up her shirt when they're alone? Plus, Lucy Gray is super worldly. She's been performing to drunk adults since age 12 or 14. You don't think she's been there, done that, got multiple t-shirts and probably had bad sex with that first boyfriend? Give me a break. If she wanted to manipulate Snow, all she had to do was let him touch her boobs and keep him lazily content. You think Snow would have felt differently about being in a cabin in the woods if sex was on the menu? You think Lucy Gray would still had that burning attraction to Snow after some really mediocre sex?

Speaking of which, I didn't really buy the romance in Act 3. I get how they got there in the first two acts and it totally works from a toxic doctor/patient, June/Nick (Handmaid's Tale) kind of perspective that does well at showing how Snow is obsessed with possessing her and super jealous. Great ways to illustrate a toxic relationship. But Act 3 doesn't take the time to show how a romance fizzles out. Because when it's born in a crucible of drama the way many a teen romance feels, it takes more time than it should to get out of it. In Act 3, they love each other pretty much up until the moment they want to kill each other. It's like, implied why the relationship did not work. Having a romance in the arena is different from actually being in a relationship in District 12 afterwards. But that's not really how it is presented on the page. They have a couple passive-aggressive fights about political philosophy where their incompatibility is beginning to show, but it's not a big deal because when push comes to shove, they will sacrifice their lives for each other. But this isn't the same as finding out the person you met on tinder is a republican and working through your differences to respect each other's political opinion. Dating Snow would be like if you were a mixed race couple and you had a debate on whether Black Lives Matter. It would be heated. It would be intense. It would be real. It's more than politics. Those kind of arguments can make or break the relationship.

Also, Snow's toxic jealousy over Lucy Gray's previous relationship wasn't a cute rehash of the Gale/Peeta love triangle. That probably needed to be addressed directly. Young adult readers really need to stop having jealousy being presented as a proof of someone's love for you. Gross. Honestly, if Collins wasn't going to directly confront some of these relationship deal breakers, the romance was completely extraneous and I assume only shoe-horned in there for the YA diehards who expect it. Like would the story really be changed if Snow wasn't in love with Lucy Gray and merely obsessed with her winning his victory and felt a possessive pride (or sexual attraction a la Claude Frolo singing Hellfire) toward her? The romance doesn't actually add anything to the existing story.

Was this a Worthwhile Read and Would You Recommend it to a Friend?

The end all and be all of book reviews is determining whether you felt the book was worth the time you spent reading it (and therefore the lost opportunity cost of doing other things) and whether you would recommend it to a friend or casual acquaintance.

General Questions I Use to Determine a 3+ Star Rating:

1. Was I engaged with the story? (i.e. was the plot and pacing good)

2. Did I like the characters?

3. Was the writing good? (i.e. suitably complex for the target audience and myself personally, as well as free of problematic views or perpetuating stupid/lazy or bad/harmful tropes)

4. Was there a clear theme? Did it make me think?

5. Was I entertained while reading this book?

Questions I Would Consider Before Recommending this Book:

1. Are you a Hunger Games stan?

2. Do you want to read a prequel book about President Snow?

3. What kind of book reading mood are you in?

For me, I give The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes a 4.5/5. Near perfect except for the minor flaws in the third act. I think Suzanne Collins only got better at writing in the 10 years absent from the world of Panem. The themes were maybe a little painfully beaten over the reader's head, but it makes them no less substantive in the way they were implemented in the actual story. Collins succeeded to show, not tell. Young Snow and Lucy Gray were complex and complicated characters I craved to know better. I cared about what happened to them. I wrote a whole long form review about it, so it obviously made me think a lot. I flew through the audiobook twice, so I was clearly engaged.

Because I liked the book so much, I was surprised it was panned by the majority of the BookTube community. And I realized after going through all those reviews that the two biggest indicators on whether they would like the book or not was whether they were really loyal to the original trilogy or even wanted to read this prequel. I came at this from a middle ground. I read the series when it came out. I watched the movies in theaters, often on the opening weekend. Then I pretty much forgot about it. I didn't know Collins planned to add anything to the series and didn't encounter any hype on the release of the book, so I didn't have any feelings either way about a Snow prequel being the new entry to the series. It's been ten years since the release of the books and five years since the last film. Because it has been so long, I really had no expectations and because I didn't grow up with HG being a formative part of my childhood, I didn't have any nostalgia to ruin. Therefore, because I was open to reading a Snow prequel and I generally liked the original trilogy, TBoSaS was an enjoyable return to the world of Panem with more or less new characters.

I think if the prospective reader is already against the possibility of a prior villain getting humanized (which I would argue the book does not do at all) and if they're going to spend the whole book comparing it to HG, they won't enjoy it. Also, just as importantly, they definitely have to be in the mood to read this book. This isn't a fluffy YA beach read. It's entertaining, but intense. If they're reading the news coming out of Portland with fear and anxiety and don't have the capacity for fictional violent oppression on top of what's currently happening, I would not recommend this book. But maybe if a young reader is frustrated with what's happened around them and aren't able to articulate that pain into clear ideas, this book might help frame it for them.

Maybe part of why I would recommend this book unequivocally is because, like the Slate article points out, for all the people who think they're Katniss, most of us are really Snow. Lots of us who have time to spare to read books, come from a place of privilege. We make difficult choices every day on whether to uphold the status quo or be complicit in the systems that benefit us. We have our reasons to do so. Good reasons. Complicated reasons. But in the end...

Black Lives Matter.

This land was stolen from Indigenous and Native People.

We have a right to protest.

A democratic government must be held accountable.

Vote. And protect the right to vote.

And to end on a lighter note, here is my favorite YouTuber ReadwithCindy hilariously reacting to the Hunger Games film in anticipation of doing a live show and her friend and fellow YouTuber, Chanelle, getting her HG cherry popped.