Tag Archives: suzanne collins

Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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I loved the Hunger Games series but I didn’t rush to read the prequel because I could have cared less about Snow. Before it came out, there were all these rumors about which Hunger Games it would be about and what a disappointment when it turned out to be Snow. There was a time, not so long ago, there was this moment of trying to humanize villains and I didn’t really care to find out what terrible things happen to Snow to turn him evil. An for most of the book, that’s kind of what it was. We met teenage Snow who has been picked to be a Mentor in the 10th Hunger Games. The Capital is still recovering from the war and the Hunger Games hasn’t really caught on with the people. This year, having students be mentor is just one way, they are trying to get people more engaged and make it into what we say 65 years later with Katniss. The Snow family were once a powerful family but lost all of their money when District 13 was destroyed. They only have their name but that might not be enough anymore. His one chance to change their fortunes is to mentor his tribute to win. He is partnered with Lucy Gray Baird from District 12. Lucy Gray is a charismatic singer and makes quite an entrance and soon the people of the Capital are rooting for her and Snow is in love. More appropriately obsessed. Long story short, he cheats to help her win and for punishment he’s forced to join the Peacekeepers and sent to the District 12 to be with Lucy Gray. Seeing how things are in the districts should have open his eyes to the injustice but instead it only makes him more Capital. I guess that is the point of the book. It’s not to humanize him but to explain why and how the Hunger Games became to be and how they came more vicious over time. Snow was truly traumatized by the war but instead of working on his own trauma but puts it onto others. LIke Lucy Gray. He doesn’t truly love her. He is jealous anytime someone else talks to her or about her. He becomes angry at the thought of past lovers. He wants to control her like he ends up wanted to control all of Panem. He is a prime example of the worst of Humanity. He comes off looking normal and reasonable but it only covers up their true nature. This wasn’t as compelling as the original series but wasn’t as disappointing as I originally thought it would be.

Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2020

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A new decade brings new books. From a YA fan the 2010’s left the dystopian sagas behind and really went in on Fantasy novels. There was so many great ones. So what does the next decade bring. Well, here are a few books I can’t wait to read in 2020.

  1. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins – A return to Panem but this time for the 25th Hunger Games or the games that Mags won. How does her story fit in with Katniss’? and How much am I going to cry knowing how it all ends for our girl Mags?
  2. Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland – The sequel to the fantastic Dread Nation. How will Jane and Katherine navigate the west after how everything ended and there are still zombies.
  3. The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan – The final book in the Trials of Apollo and if the previous four to go by, it’s going to be an emotional roller coaster.
  4. The King of Crows by Libba Bray – Talk about a decade in the making, we finally get the last book the Diviner’s Series and I couldn’t be more excited.
  5. Untitled Book Four of The Bone Season Series by Samantha Shannon – It hasn’t been confirmed for 2020 but I’m putting it on the list and into the universe that it will come out.

What books are you waiting to read in 2020? Comment below with books we should check out next year.

At the Movies

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And we are back.  Well, I am.  As I’m writing this Kate is on a plane on her way home.  New Orleans was great!  We both had a lot of fun.  It’s such a chill city.  It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing the sights. I do hope we get to go back again some day.

But back to business. The movie adaption of Insurgent by Veronica Roth comes out tomorrow.  I have mixed feelings about the movie of Divergent, I overall liked it but I have reservations about this one.  First the trailer makes it pretty clear they did some major changes and I’m not sure if that’s going to be good or bad.  Insurgent was a hard book to read because Tris suffers from PTSD and no one tries to help her and it was beyond frustrating.  I’m not sure how that will play on screen or if they will sort of gloss over it kinda like they did with Katniss in Mockingay Part 1.  I guess I’ll find out when I see it later this or next week.

There are other YA movie adaptations coming soon that I’m pretty excited.  Of course Mockingjay Part 2. That’s definitely going to be brutal.  Moviefone highlighted a few that are in the works.  Some that I knew of like The 5th Wave and Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The former should make a good movie and the latter, well hopefully with Tim Burton at the helm it will be better then the book. I didn’t know that Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Grasshopper Jungle, Immortal Rules and Shadow and Bone have all been optioned.  That’s awesome!  I think both Kate and I have said how much we loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.  That will be really interesting to see how that plays out on the big screen.  Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is excellent Vampire Dystopian novel.  I also think that Smoke and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is being produced by David Heyman of Harry Potter fame. So I have a lot faith that will be well done.  And Edgar Wright is attached to direct Grasshopper Jungle?  Yes please! I know we have talked a lot about this book lately and it’s flaws but it was an entertaining book and I actually think if done right will make a better movie.

So book fans, we have a lot of good books being made into movies in the upcoming years.  Let’s hope that they are all more like Harry Potter and Hunger Games and less like The Giver or Percy Jackson.

P.S. Not mentioned in the article but Maggie Stiefvater’s Scorpio Races and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park have also been optioned.  I’m not sure where Scorpio Races is in development but I do know that Miss Rowell was asked to write the screenplay for Eleanor and Park and well I can’t wait for both of these!

Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

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Last night with my friends Annie and Rebecca went to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 last night.  I know, finally.  Hey, We’ve all been busy with jobs ok.  Jeesh.  I’ll try to keep this spoiler free as possible but read on at your own risk.

The movie itself is fine.  It’s not great but it’s also not bad, either.  There really wasn’t anything that I really disliked about it, to be honest, except for the whole Part 1 bit.  I think splitting the book into two movies really hurt this one.  I want to say to movie companies, that just because it worked for Harry Potter does not mean it will work for all YA adaptations. I mean, it only partly worked for Twilight.  Breaking Dawn Part 1 was a big ol’ mess but Part 2 was actually pretty good since it wasn’t weighed down by all the nonsense of Vampire/human pregnancy drama.  I’m not saying that Mockingjay will be Breaking Dawn because Mockingjay Part 1 was a good movie, not great but good.  Breaking Dawn Part 1 was just bad.

So what are my issues with Mockingjay P1?  First, it started off slow.  To make the first half of the book into a full length feature film, they had to add scenes and draw out scenes to make them longer.  This really slowed down the pace of the film.  Many would argue that this was also a flaw of the book as well.  The first half of the book, is the attempt to make Katniss the Mockingjay and the internal politics of District 13.  Not exactly the most exciting stuff in the series. This is really only highlighted in the slow start of the movie.  The movie follows Katniss as she tries to grasp what has happened and try to be who they want her to be.  She (and Jennifer Lawrence) only really shine is when Katniss is able to be herself and not some manufactured rebel.  By the time the movie really starts to pick up momentum, the movie ends.  As one reviewer put it, that wasn’t a cliffhanger, that was a tease of an ending.

As I said before, it wasn’t bad.  It just wasn’t as good as the previous two.  I did enjoy the scenes of the other districts rebellions.  In the book, they mention the rebellions going on in the other districts but since the book is from Katniss point of view and she’s not see what is going on District 8, 7 or 5, so we don’t.  It was good to see how much influence the Mockingjay, truly has. To see the rebels take up what Katniss says as battle cries and actions.  It puts a whole new weight to her power that she truly doesn’t understand.  I’ve always liked the little glimpses into the Capital and President Snow throughout the series but this time, we truly get to see who ruthless he really is.  We obviously know that by what happens in the book but to see a man so calmly order a hospital of wounded men, women and children is chilling.

It really isn’t fair to judge Part 1 just yet as we haven’t seen Part 2.  For all we know, Part 2  is going to be so amazing that splitting Mockingjay into two parts was the right call but we won’t know that until next year.  I have a feeling that even if Part 2 is better, Mockingjay still would have been better as one movie.