An Enjoyable Prequel for Hunger Games Fans

Upon hearing that Suzanne Collins was going to be releasing a prequel to her worldwide hit trilogy, The Hunger Games, I had no intention of reading it. However, when I discovered that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was about President Snow's youth, I decided to give it a shot.

On the 10th anniversary of the Hunger Games, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is gearing up to be one of the first mentors of the Hunger Games. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes us once again from the reaping all the way through the games with Snow at the forefront helping to further develop the games. Snow's ambition presents difficult choices that will shape who he will become, and his journey in the games shows us that surviving outside of the arena can be just as dangerous as being inside.

Reading Collins's prequel to The Hunger Games was an unexpected pleasure and I was unable to put it down. The novel beautifully illustrates the development of the games from the perspective of the Capitol, and explains Snow's particular disdain for District 12. With the same writing style as the trilogy, the reader will finally understand how Snow ended up being the president that he was.

I loved being thrown back into Panem once again and found everything that I had enjoyed about reading the trilogy nearly 10 years ago - suspense, love, survival.