27. The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds by Suzanne Collins

A couple of days ago, I complained out loud to my family that I wanted a book whose world and story I would get totally absorbed in and would be bummed when it came to an end.  The next day my daughter put The Ballads of Snakes and Songbirds on my place at the dining room table.  I have read the first Hunger Games book back before the movies came out, quite enjoyed it, but didn't continue and then lost interest after seeing the movies (which I quite enjoyed, other than the major flaw of Katniss' unrelenting miserableness).  However, we dump a lot of culture on our child and I thought it was only fair to follow some of her recommendations.  I can't say that I got the full absorption I wanted, but I was definitely caught up in the story and really appreciated the world and history building of this book, which is a prequel and President Coriolanus Snow's (played so well by Donald Sutherland in the movies) origin story.

The setting is 10 years after the war against the Districts that put Panem back in power and instilled an even more ferocious regime as well as The Hunger Games, as punishment and reminder to the Districts for their "rebellion".  Coriolanus Snow is a top student from a famous high-born family, now struggling with poverty and trying to hide it among his wealthy classmates.  As an experiment, the Hunger Games planners have come up with the idea of each tribute getting a mentor from the Academy.  Right from the beginning, Snow forges a special bond with his tribute, Lucy Gray, who is a "Covey" which are sort of like the Romani people of the districts, but now forced to stay in District 12.   She is a performer and her charm and his initiative put them at the top of the popularity.  Snow and his classmates also come up with the idea of gambling on the games and for fans to be able to sponsor the tributes with gifts of food and water.

It's cool to see the early version of the Games, which are super bootleg, in a crumbling arena and bad communications and visuals.  Nobody really wants to watch them in the Capitol as they are so depressing and the Districts don't really have enough access to TV to make them ubiquitous.  We see the seeds of the sophisticated entertainment machine it becomes by the time of the original trilogy (40 years later).  It's all quite well thought out and darkly realistic.  I note that this book was published 2 years after sports betting became legal in North America. And now that we are in the early stages of an authoritarian takeover of the US government, which is as clownishly unrealistic as the goofiest 1980s graphic novel, the Hunger Games does not seem like that much of a stretch.

Ultimately, this is both a bildungsroman and a star-crossed romance and both narratives are woven effectively to satisfying (though not happy) conclusions.  I found the ending a bit rushed, but still believable. It is always tricky to take a major antagonist, who is almost cartoonish in their evil and then go back in time and show them as a decent person to begin with.  Here, you sympathize with Snow because his situation is so shitty, but he displays a coldness and ambition from the beginning that coalesces into a scary worldview and the ultimate betrayal of his love and youthful ideals.  By the end, you can see how he becomes President Snow and how Panem gets to the time of Katniss high-production value Hunger Games.  Note, another advantage to reading books your kids recommend is you can lean on their excellent memories.  Saves so much time to just ask them about some side character or past event than having to flip back through the book.  They remember every scene!