The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games)

Lecture en cours. Ce livre permet d'avoir des infos sur le passé de Panem appauvri suite à la guerre contre les Révoltés... La cause des Hunger Games est-elle.. bien morale? Comment grandi Coriolanus Snow, les raisons de sa manière d'arriver au pouvoir et sa part sensible.

Bough this book just out of curiosity with no expectation - well, I literally couldn’t stop reading it! The writing is simply amazing, sending the reader into the story. 100% recommended!!! Book quality is ok and delivery was on time, as expected.

Ugh. This is a tough one to rate and review. When I started reading this book, I liked it. And I liked it when I continued reading it. But I always had that gnawing feeling at the back of my mind about why this book is written. After basking in the spotlight of the mega success of The Hunger Games books and movies, I had and still have a feeling that writing and releasing this book was motivated by profit only. One thing I want and need to clarify: I have nothing against us authors making money, big money, even better. It is a normal thing since we also must live from something if we don’t do side jobs or, even worse, make writing and our passion our side job. But still. There must be something else, something more to it than pure profit. Because, as I continued reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I felt some, well, empty spaces in it? There were moments later in the book I didn’t like as much as when I started reading it, and Coriolanus Snow was getting increasingly irritating toward the end (not that I expected him to be my darling in the first place). In general, I liked the book, but I also didn’t like the most important parts of it—too mysterious ending of the relationship between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray and the ending of the book which doesn’t feel like an ending because it calls for another sequel to the prequel. This way, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes looks unfinished to me, and it provokes me to ask myself again: Do we need this book in the first place? Wouldn’t it be better to have The Hunger Games as The Hunger Games we knew and loved, and just leave things at that? Hm. Bernard Jan

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes As most readers already know, this prequel explores Coriolanus's life when he was a teenager. The opening chapters reveal that he was also chosen to be a mentor for Lucy Gray who was from the despised district 12. But what she lacks in fighting skills she makes up for being a charismatic performer. Lucy Gray learned how to work a situation to her advantage. In the beginning the tributes did not enjoy Capitol luxuries but were kept in cages and barely fed. It’s a stark contrast to the future hunger games when tributes were met with an extravagant welcome and dined on rich foods. The problem was that watching too much brutality turned the Capitol away from the Games. Snow's addition to the Hunger Games of costumes, interviews, and the underdog tributes made the propaganda go down easy. This should be a cautionary tale. A lot of readers are not getting the point the author is trying to make. In the opening of this book there's a quote by Hobbes: “Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.” — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651 Coriolanus's first "lesson" to be molded into the future oppressor was during the Hunger Games; when he was forced to go in the arena to get out Sejanus, one of the mentors, who was not supposed to be in there. While at the hospital getting stitches, the head gamekeeper, Dr. Gaul, asked if Coriolanus understood what he was supposed to learn. “Without the threat of death, it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson,” said Dr. Gaul. “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.” “I think I wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if you hadn’t stuck me in that arena!” he retorted. “You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” A very similar thought process was also stated by the Joker in The Dark Night: “To them, you’re just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don’t, they’ll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. Th...