Readers who loved the moral ambiguity and ruthless pacing of Suzanne Collins' 'Hunger Games' might be less interested in her newest novel, our critic writes. 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' is a baggy, meandering prequel that lacks a moral punch.
novels, Suzanne Collins harnessed a combination of twisty plots, teen romance, dystopian worldbuilding and subtle intimations of cannibalism to sell more than 100 million books around the world.
opens on teenage Coriolanus at home, making a cabbage soup that fills"the kitchen with the smell of poverty." Once prosperous, the Snows have fallen on hard times. Coriolanus has been chosen to mentor one of the tributes for the hunger games, a charming waif named Lucy Gray, after William Wordsworth's ballad. In helping her to victory, he sees a chance at social redemption and a coveted scholarship to the university.
One of Collins' persistent questions in the first three books is: To what extent is character warped and corrupted by circumstances? Is anyone, to quote Corionalus' Shakespearean namesake, really"author of himself"? Characters throughout the series find themselves altered by drugs and poison , along with the more quotidian influences of poverty, deprivation and war. No one comes out of the games with clean hands.
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