The English Book Club: What are you reading? The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by author Suzanne Collins

Noelia's contribution.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by the American author Suzanne Collins, has been one of my last readings. This book is the prequel to Hunger Games Trilogy.

The Hunger Trilogy is based on a dystopian futurist American country divided into twelve districts governed by the Capitol. Each year, the country celebrates "The hunger games". A man and a woman from each "district" select randomly to fight and kill the rivals. This game only can be won by one of them. The principal character is Katniss Everdeen, the girl from de Twelve District who fights against the president of the Capitol rules, Coriolanus Snow.

The book Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells the story of a young Coriolanus Snow, sixty-four years before the Hunger Games trilogy events. In this book, readers can observe how Coriolanus's personality changes page after page.

I highly recommend this book because readers could think it is another sci-fi book. But it isn't. This novel makes you think about your principles and beliefs, and if you had to choose between living or dead, what would you do to survive? Would you break all the rules?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzanne Collins was born on 10 August 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut. United Estates. Her father was an officer in the US Air Force. She is the youngest of four siblings.

Suzanne studied theatre and telecommunications in 1985 at Indiana University. After that, in 1989, she received a Master in Fine Arts in dramatic writing from New Your University. In the nineties, she worked as a screen player for the Nickelodeon TV channel.

In 2003 she wrote and realized the children's book Gregor the Overland. Influenced by her father's teaching of the Vietnam War and Theseus and the Minotaur, in 2008, she wrote the best-selling Hunger Games. In 2009 and 2010, she wrote the sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay. In 2020 Collins published the prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.