Dear Suzanne Collins,
What were you thinking? Maybe you were thinking that writing a prequel to the Hunger Games was a necessary extension of its literary universe. That you wanted, in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, to understand the motivations of the villain in the Hunger Games universe (Coriolanus Snow) and you thought giving us an epic 500+ page deep dive into his history would demonstrate the (repeated with a brick to the head obviousness) theme that people are complex and no one comes to bad choices without context.
While I hold the possibility that you were driven by artistic commitment to further exploration of these characters and their world, I’ll admit there were moments – tiny moments, really – where I doubted. Where I thought it might be possible you were writing this bloated and thematically obvious book to make a little more money. Cashing in, if you will.
And sure, the book started with a promising premise: Coriolanus and his family have lost everything and he needs to find a path back to fortune using his wits (and his female cousin’s body)(and his female tribute’s body). The Hunger Games are going to be that path and it’s interesting to see the games before they are ‘the games’ we know from Katniss. And maybe, just maybe, if the book had stopped at the point of the completion of the hunger games and we’d had something like a resolution there it might have avoided becoming (as it is) an exhausting slog through Who Even Cares Anymore to get to his eventual restoration.
It is a book that did not need to be written, and when it was, would have – should have – benefited from a sharp edit. That’s just my opinion though, and I am but one reader among the millions who bought the book or watched the movie. (To be clear: I borrowed my copy from the library and wouldn’t encourage anyone to spend actual dollars on it).
Respectfully,
E
Literary Vice 