satalasers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
satalasers) wrote2020-05-30 10:57 am
satalasers) wrote2020-05-30 10:57 am
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Suzanne Collins - The Ballad Of Snakes And Songbirds
Meh. I always wonder how intentional it is with Suzanne Collins' writing, and part of me does think it has to be intentional, but she always makes me feel kind of apathetic? Katniss is an apathetic narrator, thus, I am given no reason to care; Snow is also pretty apathetic, so yet again, I find it difficult to care in these book series.
- That being said, I don't know if it works well as a prequel?
- On one hand, I think it works well as a contrast, to see that the districts were treated even more abysmally than before; and Snow very much improved the system.
- I think I preferred Snow as a narrator rather than Mags because I want to see what a resident of the Capitol's life was like. If that meant it was Snow, then fine. I wanted to see what life was like 'outside' of the Arena/from a mentor during the game, and I guess this was sort of that, since this was technically the 'first' game where it became much more what it was going to become. Would I still like a narrator who came from another district? Yes, I would. But I did want a Capitol perspective, all the same.
- On the other hand, it falls into the fact that everything works out too neatly, and the parallels were a bit too repetitive. Crane being an idiot and the first to die. The other distracts except for 12 were pretty much ignored. Lucy Gray saying something about katniss, and the Hanging Tree song being created. (I actually didn't mind the Hanging Tree origin story, but, the katniss part was a little... too much.) Didn't like how Snow's dislike of the mockingjay happened, it just felt shoehorned in.
- I don't know if this Tigris is the same Tigris in the trilogy? To me, while they do share some similarity, THG!Tigris seemed young? and not in her 80s, like she would be if she was the same character in the prequel.
- The romance didn't work for me. I don't know how much it wasn't supposed to work. Right of the bat, Snow sees her as a tool for his success, and since you can also say that Lucy wanted to use Snow for her own survival, you can easily see it as a parallel to Katniss/Peeta, only this time much more insincere. Them turning on each other was much less climatic than I thought it would be.
- I don't think it helped that I didn't really care for Lucy Gray Baird, and kind of wanted her to die in the Games, so there'd be a surprise victor. There was a lot of emphasis on her performance and singing skills, which, uh, not great to read on page, and so I skimmed them.
- I have no idea what the Covey are? I was super lost on that whenever Lucy talked about it.
- I wanted to like Sejanus. He's morally in the right, but knowing that his plight won't be achieved for another sixty odd years, kind of made him easy to spot that he was going to die and that he was a lost cause. I'm not being very sympathetic, but I just wanted to get through the book as quickly as possible. There were times I did genuinely like Sejanus, but I often felt like he was idiot. I don't know if his parents being very very rich made him immune to some degree, but I did think his outbursts should have gotten him killed much sooner than it did.
- That Clementa subplot where she got bit by snakes, got reptile skin, and became unhinged did not work as well as it wanted to. I could have easily skipped it, tbh, and felt like it went nowhere fast.
- I did not care for Dr Gaul. Yeah. I know a lot of characters felt one note, but she really did feel one note.
- Making Snow's dad/Dean Highbottom's the 'creator' of the Hunger Games was too much. Also, JFC, I don't know if the intent was to remind me of Monopoly, and how I lose interest playing the game after ten minutes, (which is the point of Monopoly! but everyone always insists until the last person is out of money); but no wonder I got bored. The whole point is to invigorate the game, and make it mandatory, but they never really do succeed in that part.
- Suzanne Collins has always been on the nose. This time was no exception. I don't think she's got good naming conventions TBH. Do people rename themselves to fit the theme of their district, or...? I still don't quite understand the Dark Days, I'm not sure I ever will.
- Killing off both the mentors and the victors wasn't quite as thrilling as I'd hoped...? I don't know. The problem was that I never felt like this book had that much suspense or tension, because it was pretty obvious that it was always going to be Snow, and it was always going to be Lucy. Snow was always alone, even when he tried not to be.
- I really can't imagine this being an interesting movie. It was kind of a tedious book, but IDK. It's one shining grace will probably be Lucky Flickerman, hopefully played by Stanley Tucci.
- First and second part were better than the third part, I felt. Which, yeah, kinda true of THG trilogy as well.
I will probably reread this book again, but I think I need to mull on it some more.
- That being said, I don't know if it works well as a prequel?
- On one hand, I think it works well as a contrast, to see that the districts were treated even more abysmally than before; and Snow very much improved the system.
- I think I preferred Snow as a narrator rather than Mags because I want to see what a resident of the Capitol's life was like. If that meant it was Snow, then fine. I wanted to see what life was like 'outside' of the Arena/from a mentor during the game, and I guess this was sort of that, since this was technically the 'first' game where it became much more what it was going to become. Would I still like a narrator who came from another district? Yes, I would. But I did want a Capitol perspective, all the same.
- On the other hand, it falls into the fact that everything works out too neatly, and the parallels were a bit too repetitive. Crane being an idiot and the first to die. The other distracts except for 12 were pretty much ignored. Lucy Gray saying something about katniss, and the Hanging Tree song being created. (I actually didn't mind the Hanging Tree origin story, but, the katniss part was a little... too much.) Didn't like how Snow's dislike of the mockingjay happened, it just felt shoehorned in.
- I don't know if this Tigris is the same Tigris in the trilogy? To me, while they do share some similarity, THG!Tigris seemed young? and not in her 80s, like she would be if she was the same character in the prequel.
- The romance didn't work for me. I don't know how much it wasn't supposed to work. Right of the bat, Snow sees her as a tool for his success, and since you can also say that Lucy wanted to use Snow for her own survival, you can easily see it as a parallel to Katniss/Peeta, only this time much more insincere. Them turning on each other was much less climatic than I thought it would be.
- I don't think it helped that I didn't really care for Lucy Gray Baird, and kind of wanted her to die in the Games, so there'd be a surprise victor. There was a lot of emphasis on her performance and singing skills, which, uh, not great to read on page, and so I skimmed them.
- I have no idea what the Covey are? I was super lost on that whenever Lucy talked about it.
- I wanted to like Sejanus. He's morally in the right, but knowing that his plight won't be achieved for another sixty odd years, kind of made him easy to spot that he was going to die and that he was a lost cause. I'm not being very sympathetic, but I just wanted to get through the book as quickly as possible. There were times I did genuinely like Sejanus, but I often felt like he was idiot. I don't know if his parents being very very rich made him immune to some degree, but I did think his outbursts should have gotten him killed much sooner than it did.
- That Clementa subplot where she got bit by snakes, got reptile skin, and became unhinged did not work as well as it wanted to. I could have easily skipped it, tbh, and felt like it went nowhere fast.
- I did not care for Dr Gaul. Yeah. I know a lot of characters felt one note, but she really did feel one note.
- Making Snow's dad/Dean Highbottom's the 'creator' of the Hunger Games was too much. Also, JFC, I don't know if the intent was to remind me of Monopoly, and how I lose interest playing the game after ten minutes, (which is the point of Monopoly! but everyone always insists until the last person is out of money); but no wonder I got bored. The whole point is to invigorate the game, and make it mandatory, but they never really do succeed in that part.
- Suzanne Collins has always been on the nose. This time was no exception. I don't think she's got good naming conventions TBH. Do people rename themselves to fit the theme of their district, or...? I still don't quite understand the Dark Days, I'm not sure I ever will.
- Killing off both the mentors and the victors wasn't quite as thrilling as I'd hoped...? I don't know. The problem was that I never felt like this book had that much suspense or tension, because it was pretty obvious that it was always going to be Snow, and it was always going to be Lucy. Snow was always alone, even when he tried not to be.
- I really can't imagine this being an interesting movie. It was kind of a tedious book, but IDK. It's one shining grace will probably be Lucky Flickerman, hopefully played by Stanley Tucci.
- First and second part were better than the third part, I felt. Which, yeah, kinda true of THG trilogy as well.
I will probably reread this book again, but I think I need to mull on it some more.