--- product_id: 188809703 title: "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel" price: "VT1644" currency: VUV in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.vu/products/188809703-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-a-hunger-games-novel store_origin: VU region: Vanuatu --- # The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel **Price:** VT1644 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel - **How much does it cost?** VT1644 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.vu](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/188809703-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-a-hunger-games-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-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 out charm, 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. Review: This is not a hero story - 4.5 stars desertcart delivered my copy early, so I'm going to do a spoiler free review and then a spoilery one. Pardon if this winds up sounding like an English paper. I have thought so much on the morals and questions in this book that I feel like I should have read this in school. Note: I'm writing this review with the express belief that you, reader, have at least read the book description. Otherwise why are you reading this review? I want to start this off by saying two things. One, this is not a hero story. Snow is never once, in my opinion, shown to be a hero in this in what we modern folks would call a hero. He's no Luke Skywalker or redeemed villain. This isn't some sob backstory to explain "why the bad guy is bad." This is yet another set of layers to the onion that is Snow. Second, this book is dark. It's been a minute since I read the original trilogy, but I swear it wasn't quite as graphic as this book was. Cannibalism is mentioned, and it's shown/talked about that someone sawed the leg off a dead woman and ran off with it. One character is killed then hung on a hook and paraded. Another is also gruesomely displayed after their death. Several characters are dragged through processions to "prove a point," another character is hung from two large poles and left to basically die in the sun. Multiple accounts of vomiting/poison throughout, and a general unpleasantness at the lack of regard for human life. Non-spoilery review: This book makes you think. A lot. It makes you question things, and wonder if maybe Snow is right (he's not), but it's written in such a way that he's not a villain. Donald Sutherland in an interview made a great point in saying that Snow isn't a villain, he's just a ruthless man doing what he thinks is right to keep his home and country in one piece. "He does it so well. And he doesn't think he's a bad person. He thinks it's the only way society can survive. And whether you think he's right or wrong, he doesn't think he's bad. He likes himself." This should be the mantra for this book. Snow is a conflicting, flawed human. In our society, he's evil, a sociopath or a psychopath. He's a murderer and a killer. He's a bad guy. In his world, he's one of the masses. He simply lives as he's been raised to, with a mentality that has been ingrained in him since the war between the Districts and the Capitol. He's simply more ruthless then most and has the guts to make what he considers the "hard decisions." Regardless of the other characters in this, they're all props to his story--which fits well with the Snow we know from The Hunger Games. Everyone is second stage to Snow and his life. This is his evolution from being a child to a man, to becoming the Snow we know and love/hate. I definitely don't think this book is for everyone. I'm sitting here with my mom breathing down my neck because she can't wait to read it, and I don't think she'll like it at all, and she's a diehard THG trilogy fan. Why? Because not everyone likes to read depressing books. There's no redemption in this. There's no saving someone from themselves. This is the fall, stumble, plummet into being a not great person and embracing it fully. So take that as you will. Full spoilers below about everything. P.s. This is a standalone. SPOILERS BELOW Okay, so, I was worried about this book when I read the first chapter sample and it got announced that Snow would be training the District 12 girl. I thought, oh crap, it's gonna be a cliche YA. It's gonna have a stupid romance that undercuts the whole plot and makes him a sap. And yeah, it did that, and up until the last 50 pages I was teetering on a 3-3.5 stars. And then oh boy, the end. Lucy Grey was a sweet girl, but she felt off since the beginning. I still can't fully put my finger on it, but her and Snow's relationship felt so wrong the entirety of the book. The red flags went up repeatedly every time he made comments about how she was his, and even so far as to say she was his property, and that's all kinds of wrong. And even though their romance was cute and fluffy, it felt bad, tainted. You knew something was going to happen. It always does in these villain backstories. Usually the whole reason the villain is bad is because the love interest gets brutally killed and then they're like whelp, guess I'll just be evil. Not in this book. Snow constantly struggles with morality and right and wrong throughout this. Should he turn in his friend to the Capitol because they're colluding with rebels and could tear down the (flawed) infrastructure? Or should he turn a blind eye and let his friend do his own thing? Is the Hunger Games wrong or good? Is it wrong to view the District people as second class humans? And so on. This book broaches the topic of racism in very broad terms with the whole District/Capitol thing. You've always known there was a divide between them, but in this, you really see how much the Capitol looks down on the Districts, and you can easily see how that morphs into such a hatred and distaste by the time Katniss first enters the Hunger Games. But I digress. Snow struggles with morality, but he's flawed and very, very imperfect. He rationalizes every death he takes as self-defense or some other reason when really he's just murdered someone because it's inconvenient for him. He kills (or at least removes her from the picture; it's ambiguous) Lucy Grey in the end because she's a loose end and too free. He does it. Not someone else, not some freak accident. He chooses to do it and, by the time it happens, you already know what direction he's headed in so it's not quite another nail in the coffin. It fully feels like him tying up loose ends so he can go do whatever he wants. All the nods to THG characters and names was cool. You also had a lot of The Great Gatsby vibes in the Old Money versus New Money mentality that a lot of the Capitol had with District people who gained a fortune and bought their way into the Capitol life. They're looked down upon by the old families and viewed as trash. You saw a lot of the evolution in the Hunger Games, and you can see how it begins to change and grow into what Katniss and Peeta suffered through. You see how it begins to change from a simple punishment to a sport and a holiday, with the growing encouragement that it should be a normal and good thing. You also see a side of the Capitol you most definitely did not see in the trilogy--suffering. A lot of the book shows Snow struggling with having been a small child living through the Dark Days and the war. He was 8 when the Capitol won, and even then it was hard. You learn about the hell the Capitol lived through as they were besieged by the Districts' army and forced to ration, starvation, and cannibalism. It's a hard picture, and it's so blatantly told. Collins didn't hold back any punches in this. I never felt like what was done was for shock and awe for the reader, but it was definitely that for the story, and it made sense. Regardless of the Capitol not being at war with the Districts anymore, the tensions were still so high that it makes sense for the Capitol to overreact in their retaliation of events. So when one mentor gets killed by her tribute, they shoot the tribute and parade her body around on a hook at the mentor's funeral. It's disgusting, debasing, and shows how much the Capitol views the Districts as nothing more than rodents or livestock. Anyway, I'll stop talking. Go read it yourself. It's a hard read, a heavy read, but it was very, very enjoyable. Review: Not as good as Hunger Games but a good book - The book was not great, nor very exciting or realistic. But if you are a Hunger Games fan, you really do have to read it. Suzanne Collins is a good writer, so I did find myself compelled by her words and found it often hard to put the book down. That said, there were a few things that felt forced in the storyline, and the timeline felt a little off. For example, the games were going on for 10 years already, and they were only just getting around to working out the bugs. Also, by the time Katniss came along, the games had been in effect for 75 years. That would make Snow something like 85 years old. He wasn't described as that old in the Hunger Games series. And in this book, Panem did not have the advanced technology they had 60 years later. However, this seems wrong since Panem is already far into "our" future. So shouldn't they already have the holograms and high tech gadgets? Things I liked: It was interesting to see the Hunger Games from the earlier days when tributes were treated more like animals than celebrities, and the arena was an actual arena, like in a bull fight. The idea that there were vagabonds throughout Panem, who weren't part of any district. The idea that in the old days, not all the tributes made it to the games. (Though I think they'd have worked that out in 10 years.) I loved Lucy Gray Baird. I liked the appearance of Tigris. Snow's transformation from a reasonable human being to an obsessive deviant. What I did not like: While I did like the district 12 tribute (Lucy), she wasn't very realistic. She was too cheerful for someone who wasn't even from the districts and got thrown into their bizarre death ritual. The misconception that Snow was poor and hungry. In the first few pages, they try to depict Snow as someone who hadn't eaten in days, someone who rarely has anything but cabbage soup. Then suddenly his cousin shows up with potatoes and veggies and they ate pretty well. From then on, Snow ate ALL THE TIME. He was always eating. The tributes were also eating all the time. It seemed like no one ever went hungry, even though the narration implied that everyone was poor and starving. The never-ending page after page of singing. This is the worst thing to put in a book. You can't read a song! I don't know the music and I don't feel like making up a tune to go with pages worth of someone else's lyrics. How annoying! This was so obviously Suzanne Collins setting the book up to be a movie. Annoying. Oh and how about some of the songs that just happened to be the ones Katniss sang later. Really? This is a play on OUR future. No one has a David Bowie song stashed somewhere? Despite my dislikes, I am glad I read it and I think if you are a fan, you should definitely read. Don't expect great Hunger Games characters or even much of a storyline. Think of it as a bit of supplemental info on a great trilogy. ## Images ![The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/9156QjXBIHL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is not a hero story *by A***T on May 24, 2020* 4.5 stars Amazon delivered my copy early, so I'm going to do a spoiler free review and then a spoilery one. Pardon if this winds up sounding like an English paper. I have thought so much on the morals and questions in this book that I feel like I should have read this in school. Note: I'm writing this review with the express belief that you, reader, have at least read the book description. Otherwise why are you reading this review? I want to start this off by saying two things. One, this is not a hero story. Snow is never once, in my opinion, shown to be a hero in this in what we modern folks would call a hero. He's no Luke Skywalker or redeemed villain. This isn't some sob backstory to explain "why the bad guy is bad." This is yet another set of layers to the onion that is Snow. Second, this book is dark. It's been a minute since I read the original trilogy, but I swear it wasn't quite as graphic as this book was. Cannibalism is mentioned, and it's shown/talked about that someone sawed the leg off a dead woman and ran off with it. One character is killed then hung on a hook and paraded. Another is also gruesomely displayed after their death. Several characters are dragged through processions to "prove a point," another character is hung from two large poles and left to basically die in the sun. Multiple accounts of vomiting/poison throughout, and a general unpleasantness at the lack of regard for human life. Non-spoilery review: This book makes you think. A lot. It makes you question things, and wonder if maybe Snow is right (he's not), but it's written in such a way that he's not a villain. Donald Sutherland in an interview made a great point in saying that Snow isn't a villain, he's just a ruthless man doing what he thinks is right to keep his home and country in one piece. "He does it so well. And he doesn't think he's a bad person. He thinks it's the only way society can survive. And whether you think he's right or wrong, he doesn't think he's bad. He likes himself." This should be the mantra for this book. Snow is a conflicting, flawed human. In our society, he's evil, a sociopath or a psychopath. He's a murderer and a killer. He's a bad guy. In his world, he's one of the masses. He simply lives as he's been raised to, with a mentality that has been ingrained in him since the war between the Districts and the Capitol. He's simply more ruthless then most and has the guts to make what he considers the "hard decisions." Regardless of the other characters in this, they're all props to his story--which fits well with the Snow we know from The Hunger Games. Everyone is second stage to Snow and his life. This is his evolution from being a child to a man, to becoming the Snow we know and love/hate. I definitely don't think this book is for everyone. I'm sitting here with my mom breathing down my neck because she can't wait to read it, and I don't think she'll like it at all, and she's a diehard THG trilogy fan. Why? Because not everyone likes to read depressing books. There's no redemption in this. There's no saving someone from themselves. This is the fall, stumble, plummet into being a not great person and embracing it fully. So take that as you will. Full spoilers below about everything. P.s. This is a standalone. SPOILERS BELOW Okay, so, I was worried about this book when I read the first chapter sample and it got announced that Snow would be training the District 12 girl. I thought, oh crap, it's gonna be a cliche YA. It's gonna have a stupid romance that undercuts the whole plot and makes him a sap. And yeah, it did that, and up until the last 50 pages I was teetering on a 3-3.5 stars. And then oh boy, the end. Lucy Grey was a sweet girl, but she felt off since the beginning. I still can't fully put my finger on it, but her and Snow's relationship felt so wrong the entirety of the book. The red flags went up repeatedly every time he made comments about how she was his, and even so far as to say she was his property, and that's all kinds of wrong. And even though their romance was cute and fluffy, it felt bad, tainted. You knew something was going to happen. It always does in these villain backstories. Usually the whole reason the villain is bad is because the love interest gets brutally killed and then they're like whelp, guess I'll just be evil. Not in this book. Snow constantly struggles with morality and right and wrong throughout this. Should he turn in his friend to the Capitol because they're colluding with rebels and could tear down the (flawed) infrastructure? Or should he turn a blind eye and let his friend do his own thing? Is the Hunger Games wrong or good? Is it wrong to view the District people as second class humans? And so on. This book broaches the topic of racism in very broad terms with the whole District/Capitol thing. You've always known there was a divide between them, but in this, you really see how much the Capitol looks down on the Districts, and you can easily see how that morphs into such a hatred and distaste by the time Katniss first enters the Hunger Games. But I digress. Snow struggles with morality, but he's flawed and very, very imperfect. He rationalizes every death he takes as self-defense or some other reason when really he's just murdered someone because it's inconvenient for him. He kills (or at least removes her from the picture; it's ambiguous) Lucy Grey in the end because she's a loose end and too free. He does it. Not someone else, not some freak accident. He chooses to do it and, by the time it happens, you already know what direction he's headed in so it's not quite another nail in the coffin. It fully feels like him tying up loose ends so he can go do whatever he wants. All the nods to THG characters and names was cool. You also had a lot of The Great Gatsby vibes in the Old Money versus New Money mentality that a lot of the Capitol had with District people who gained a fortune and bought their way into the Capitol life. They're looked down upon by the old families and viewed as trash. You saw a lot of the evolution in the Hunger Games, and you can see how it begins to change and grow into what Katniss and Peeta suffered through. You see how it begins to change from a simple punishment to a sport and a holiday, with the growing encouragement that it should be a normal and good thing. You also see a side of the Capitol you most definitely did not see in the trilogy--suffering. A lot of the book shows Snow struggling with having been a small child living through the Dark Days and the war. He was 8 when the Capitol won, and even then it was hard. You learn about the hell the Capitol lived through as they were besieged by the Districts' army and forced to ration, starvation, and cannibalism. It's a hard picture, and it's so blatantly told. Collins didn't hold back any punches in this. I never felt like what was done was for shock and awe for the reader, but it was definitely that for the story, and it made sense. Regardless of the Capitol not being at war with the Districts anymore, the tensions were still so high that it makes sense for the Capitol to overreact in their retaliation of events. So when one mentor gets killed by her tribute, they shoot the tribute and parade her body around on a hook at the mentor's funeral. It's disgusting, debasing, and shows how much the Capitol views the Districts as nothing more than rodents or livestock. Anyway, I'll stop talking. Go read it yourself. It's a hard read, a heavy read, but it was very, very enjoyable. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not as good as Hunger Games but a good book *by W***D on June 24, 2020* The book was not great, nor very exciting or realistic. But if you are a Hunger Games fan, you really do have to read it. Suzanne Collins is a good writer, so I did find myself compelled by her words and found it often hard to put the book down. That said, there were a few things that felt forced in the storyline, and the timeline felt a little off. For example, the games were going on for 10 years already, and they were only just getting around to working out the bugs. Also, by the time Katniss came along, the games had been in effect for 75 years. That would make Snow something like 85 years old. He wasn't described as that old in the Hunger Games series. And in this book, Panem did not have the advanced technology they had 60 years later. However, this seems wrong since Panem is already far into "our" future. So shouldn't they already have the holograms and high tech gadgets? Things I liked: It was interesting to see the Hunger Games from the earlier days when tributes were treated more like animals than celebrities, and the arena was an actual arena, like in a bull fight. The idea that there were vagabonds throughout Panem, who weren't part of any district. The idea that in the old days, not all the tributes made it to the games. (Though I think they'd have worked that out in 10 years.) I loved Lucy Gray Baird. I liked the appearance of Tigris. Snow's transformation from a reasonable human being to an obsessive deviant. What I did not like: While I did like the district 12 tribute (Lucy), she wasn't very realistic. She was too cheerful for someone who wasn't even from the districts and got thrown into their bizarre death ritual. The misconception that Snow was poor and hungry. In the first few pages, they try to depict Snow as someone who hadn't eaten in days, someone who rarely has anything but cabbage soup. Then suddenly his cousin shows up with potatoes and veggies and they ate pretty well. From then on, Snow ate ALL THE TIME. He was always eating. The tributes were also eating all the time. It seemed like no one ever went hungry, even though the narration implied that everyone was poor and starving. The never-ending page after page of singing. This is the worst thing to put in a book. You can't read a song! I don't know the music and I don't feel like making up a tune to go with pages worth of someone else's lyrics. How annoying! This was so obviously Suzanne Collins setting the book up to be a movie. Annoying. Oh and how about some of the songs that just happened to be the ones Katniss sang later. Really? This is a play on OUR future. No one has a David Bowie song stashed somewhere? Despite my dislikes, I am glad I read it and I think if you are a fan, you should definitely read. Don't expect great Hunger Games characters or even much of a storyline. Think of it as a bit of supplemental info on a great trilogy. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A fantastic villain origin story *by H***Y on September 9, 2023* I adored the Hunger Games series. Dystopian YA is not a normal genre for me, but this series is awesome and this prequel? A fantastic villain origin story. Coriolanus Snow is an ambitious 18-year-old student whose wealthy family barely survived the war. He is all about image and pretense, which often vie against his normal, human feelings. His parents are dead and he lives in a rundown apartment with his grandmother and cousin Tigris. But, the 10th Hunger Games is to be the first one with mentors and Coriolanus has been chosen to mentor the female tribute from District 12. While at first humiliated at not being given a more highly rated district, he quickly realizes that Lucy Gray is someone who could win and it's up to him to figure out how to help her do that. Along the way, Coriolanus learns about love and the dangers it can bring. As he works his way through the Games, he also discovers who wields the power in the Capitol, who controls the games and what he needs to do to rise up above the masses. The student mentors also have a say in how the games are run, and in a somewhat twisted sort of way, their professor gives assignments and in Coriolanus' essays, we see how future Games come about and evolve. As the mentors talk about the games and what is happening, we also see how they are not all unfeeling or unkind. They view their tributes as people and they can see how unfair the Games really are. At the same time we see that those in the Capitol are only concerned about their well being and that their losses are because of the rebels. The Hunger Games series is vibrant and colorful in its imagery. This book, however, was almost more black and gray in its imagery, what with the rubble of the arena and the Capitol still trying to rebuild from the war. That made the contrast of Lucy Gray's colorful skirt and the snakes all the more striking. As with the rest of the series, we see the government oppression, we see the results of war and rebellion. We see society broken, but fighting and we see that even with survival, life isn't grand and colorful. But we also see that the human spirit is strong. No one likes who President Snow becomes and I think writing about his story so that he gains the reader's sympathy is brilliant. The story isn't fast-paced, but it drew me in and kept me enthralled. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.vu/products/188809703-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-a-hunger-games-novel](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/188809703-the-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-a-hunger-games-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Vanuatu* *Store origin: VU* *Last updated: 2026-05-17*