The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes - Suzanne Collins

Dystopian YA Fiction

Rating: 7/10

In the final pages of this novel, as the original maker of the Hunger Games asks himself of his prank proposal, “Who but the vilest monster would stage it?”, it’s understood that you have just spent several hours keeping company with one such individual.

A decade after the war between the Districts and the Capitol, the Head Gamemaker brings in students to act as mentors to each of the tributes in hopes that will liven things up.  One of these students in none other than 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow. The ruthless future President of Panem.

It’s a bold move to explore the origins of such a monumental villain, particularly in young adult fiction where the demand for likable protagonists increases tenfold. And credit must be given the author for unabashedly embracing all of Snow’s character traits. Never once choosing the easy way out in order to excuse the monstrousness and tyrannical nature we know is fated.  As Collin’s tells this story we see his character flash through fleeting moments of compassion, camaraderie and tenderness to ones of calculation, narcissism and detachment. Ultimately the reader comes to the determination that whether people are good or bad is not the measure of nature versus nurture.  But rather nature and nurture.

Footnote: I really wanted to enjoy this read more but understood that in the end the pitfall in an origin story for an unequivocal bad guy is that there is no avoiding how his disposition turns out in the end.