Ambition will fuel him. Competition will drive him. But power has its price. It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able … hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined – every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
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This is one of the most well written books that I have hated. The writing was amazing and the storyline was fantastic. Collins did such a spectacular job of connecting this book to the rest of the series. I can’t fathom how she was able to create these details to fit and how she was able to keep everything straight. She wrote an amazingly complex perfect prequel to the series. I think the fact that I had already read the series helped me appreciate that complexity, but it also ruined it a bit for me. How it ruined it was I had trouble connecting some of the characters in how they were in this book to how they end up in the rest of the series. I will explain at the end of the review in case you want to avoid spoilers. That inconsistency was in no way a flaw of the authors writing; it is more like reading the end of a story before read the book feeling. That was the part I hated.
Another aspect I was impressed with was how the Hunger Games did not start out as the version Katniss fought in. It only makes sense that it wouldn’t start out that way, but I never had thought of that before.
There were a few things that I felt like were thrown in just because that weren’t necessary, but that only happened twice.
And good grief does Snow have control issues. Not that you don’t know that from the series, but it’s like he went from controlling the little things he could to wanting to control the world. I feel like it showed that control isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Spoilers
Snow’s character drove me batty, basically he’s a butt hole for 90% of the story who accidentally isn’t once in a blue moon. At the beginning of the story he starts off as a pompous, poor control freak, but not totally unlikable. The not totally unlikable part made it easier to read the story, but I kept waiting for the moment he turned awful because I knew he was an awful leader. He starts connecting to his tribute and sees how awful things are and seems to lose some of the pompous, but that made me more anxious about the other shoe dropping because he had to turn bad. Also he is a narcissistic boyfriend. I’m used to at least liking the main guy character, but not him. And boy does he do a spectacular job of turning into a bigger jerk than he already was. He starts by killing one person, and by the end has killed 5. He becomes cool with killing anyone in his way. One of them being his girlfriend! Plus he’s swindling one of the victims families, and sees it as his right. His cousin Tigris keeps him alive, but we know by the series he turns her out and she even helps the people who plan on killing him I found it fascinating that Katniss is like Lucy Grey reincarnate. No wonder she sent Snow over the edge, she was a slap in the face reminder of Lucy Grey, district 12, and anything he could feel guilty about. The fact that I could see Snow’s fingerprints all over Katniss’s version of the Hunger Games, when at one point even he had been appalled by them. If he hadn’t let fear and control, control him, he could have been such a different person.
I really hope a Haymitch book is a thing that happens though, because I think that would be a fascinating, although probably sad story.
Probably one of the best prequels I have ever read. By the second chapter I had already forgotten that Coriolanus was the villain from the Hunger Games trilogy and instead saw him as an innocent teenager, confused by the world. This story was so well written and definitely unpredictable!
In case you don’t know, this is the 4th book in the Hunger Games Saga and I’m finally reading it. First of I was so excited to see that it was narrated by the same guy that did You by Caroline Knepes. Yay! His voice is gold.
This book is the story of the man we know as President Snow from the first three books, and how he came to be who he was. He is just eighteen years old and the games are new, only ten years post-war and therefore they are still pretty raw. He is poor and struggling to keep up the – I’m a rich boy- front that he has managed in the years after losing his parents. I also love how she worked in his obsession with Roses and made it normal in this book, I can see how it would spiral into the thing that it is in the other books.
Snow is an almost likable guy, almost. He struggles to remain true to himself and his upbringing, and remain likable- but he manages it fairly well. His growth into who he will be later is slow and well done, and you can almost understand how he became who he was. His love for the capital is there, yet the capital is what made him the monster that he would be.
Brilliantly done, an excellent addition to the series. I loved it.
I loved reading this prequel to The Hunger Games books. I devoured this book from beginning to end, I couldn’t tear my gaze away for a moment. I found it interesting to learn more about the evil President Snow and how his experiences in his younger days led to his disastrous end in Mockingjay. I also loved learning more history about Panam and how the Hunger Games started.
Highly recommend this excellent book to anyone who enjoyed the original trilogy!!
A good read but not as good as the Hunger Games. Interesting twist in characters.
I think this adds a lot of more realism to the world of the hunger games series, and if you do like theories there’s a lot of those to be had in this book.
Exceptional! I feared this book wouldn’t be able to live up to the original Hunger Games series. I shouldn’t have. It was excellent. The world building vivid as always. The characters well thought out and multifaceted. Snow was incredibly interesting. I loved learning his backstory and how he came to be such an evil villain. There is action, friendship, love, loyalty, betrayal, politics and of course, death. I mean it is the Hunger Games after all.
https://boI was again impressed with Suzanne’s writing. If someone told me I would come to care what happened to President Snow I would have laughed in your face. That’s how good she is. I became so wrapped up in the story she told and the characters she portrayed that I would forget that I already knew how the story ended. Not only that, but I was rooting for a man I had come to absolutely loathe.
Hunger Games fans will love seeing how The Games came to be what they were. Once again she builds a completely unique world, different from what you know from The Hunger Games. Then she slowly leads you along a fascinating trail of how the world you’re in came to be the world you’ve known.
I must admit, I felt the book lagged a little about two-thirds of the way through. I found myself wondering a few times, how much longer is this?!
I’m still not sure how I felt about the ending, but then again I knew going in that this wasn’t a happily ever after kind of book. I am incredibly impressed that Suzanne had be believing it was for a good portion of the book. I would definitely recommend for fans of The Hunger Games or those who love a good Origins story.
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I was interested in how the author would continue the Hunger Games saga. She did so with the same violence as earlier novels. I thought some of it was a bit slow in the action. Sometimes the action was so abrupt that I had to ask, “What just happened?” This caused me to lose interest and get lost. I thought that the book would center around one more game. But the game was won by half way through the book. The rest of the book dealt with “life after the game”.
I listened to the audio version, which was 15 hours long. We were traveling by car at the time and made the miles go by quickly. The narrator did a great job in voicing the different characters. His voice was pleasant to listen to.
It was great to see the background story for Coriolanus Snow and how the Hunger Games have evolved.
It didn’t capture my interest as much as the Hunger Games. It could be that you already know he’s evil and there is no redemption for him.
Initially I hadn’t planned on reading this book. I didn’t really have any interest in Snow’s backstory, but my husband bought it for me as a gift, so I was obligated. *Heads up, there is one spoiler in this review towards the end.*
That being said, I did enjoy seeing not only the Capitol side of the Hunger Games, but the Hunger Games when it was so raw along with some insight to the games’ evolution and some of the moments that put Snow on the road to who we know him as in the original novels.
The story and characters were interesting and engaging. Overall a quick read for me. There were a couple of things that disappointed me: 1) With Tigres being his cousin, and knowing that Tigres ultimately helps the rebellion, I expected to see some kind of launching point for how she went from being a very loving family member to being willing to help take him down. 2) I kept getting the sense that perhaps Lucy Gray is ultimately the great grandmother or grandmother of Katniss. I couldn’t tell if hints were being dropped, or if it was wishful thinking on my part, but I would have liked an epilogue on both their parts. I doubt she ultimately perished, but stayed in hiding.
I really had zero interest in reading a book about President Snow Before He Was President, but Santino Fontana is the narrator of this audiobook, and I have an undying interest in Santino Fontana Reading Things To Me. If you want to spend more time in the Hunger Games world, this is a well-constructed addition, expanding the world while delivering the same type of thrills that made the Hunger Games trilogy a phenomenon. (Clearly, I recommend it on audio.)
If you told me right after Mockingjay came out that I’d be reading a new Hunger Games book in 2020 I’d have called you crazy. But here we are! Overall this was really good fun, it was nice to get back to the supremely messed up world of Panem and to get some more insight into how the Hunger Games came to be and the early years of the Capitol. But honestly I found the choice to centre the novel around Snow to be kind of confusing. Normally with this kind of prequel, which examines how the baddie became the baddie, you start off with a broadly likeable, even heroic, protagonist who has a fatal flaw that eventually leads to them crossing over to the dark side. However, Snow starts off very much a total dick who is only concerned with his own reputation, the reputation of his family and acquiring material comfort. He’s also extremely content to step on others to get ahead. Unfortunately this makes the whole book rather predictable – I saw the ‘twists’ with Sejanus and Lucy coming a mile off. Furthermore, I fear that the depth of characterisation Collins achieved in The Hunger Games went a bit out the window. Lucy felt like a bit of a Mary-Sue to me and honestly she didn’t seem to have many character traits other than being obscenely talented, charismatic, ‘quirky’ and vaguely ‘troubled’. I didn’t get any real sense of her hopes or fears or who she is as a person. But I did enjoy how Collins wove motifs from the Hunger Games into the prequel – in particular the mockingjays and The Hanging Tree. However, I think I’d rather have gotten the info via a different set of characters (just give us the 50th Quarter Quell prequel we’ve been asking for!).
I felt the book started off very slowly and didn’t pick up until about chapter 12 and from that point it got very good. I actually liked it so much at the end that I wished there was another book after it.
Gee, can not recommend this book at all, and this comes from someone that could not put original The Hunger Games trilogy down. THG was no lighthearted walk in the park, but it had an energy, focus, three dimensional characters and ultimately a sense of hope in the human spirit. There is none of that here especially goodness in mankind. Not quite sure why Suzanne Collins wrote this book as she could have chosen almost any other character rather than Snow. His character was well developed in the first three books so we already know him and know his destiny.
Essentially this is the story of a young Snow, an impoverished sycophantic son of what remains of a powerful Capitol family. Snow becomes mentor to a standout tribute in the tenth Hunger Games. This game has none of the slick flash and sparkle of fatted trophy prey being brought to the Capitol for their killing as shown in the 74th and 75th games. This is like a Depression era world where the Capitol is trying to figure out how to engage their television audience so they can keep the games going. More than a hint of Nazi’s training their youth to focus hate and scorn on lesser individuals is prevalent, and the mentors score off each other during the event like owners at a cockfight. It’s an embarrassing failure for the mentor when their tribute dies.
Collins shows evil Mengele style doctors in graphic details as they experiment on Avox’s and create more of the disgusting mutts that populated the original series. I can’t see recommending this to anyone in elementary school, and would advise any parent to read this book first. The experiments, actions and mindset is more than disturbing and unlike the original Hunger Games there are few voices of reason or decency.
I’m not going to get into details of plot other than to say that the end of the game is not the end of the story as Collins has more betrayal and deviance ahead for her characters.
I can’t recommend The Hunger Games or Collins’ Underland Chronicles enough, but it’s a puzzler why she wrote this one. A lot of readers wanted Mags’ story which would have been a better addition.
Good prequel to the series. Helps to understand the history of President Snow and the nation.
4.5*
Gosh I enjoyed being back in the Capitol and districts of Panem!
If you ever wondered about President Snow, this story is for you. The Tenth Hunger Games takes place when Coriolanus Snow is roughly eighteen years old. He along with his esteemed classmates become the mentors for the 24 tributes sent by the districts.
There is so much going on in this story, leading Coriolanus down the path of no return. This is a must read for Hunger Games fans. It’s also the perfect introduction to books 1, 2, and 3.
I think anyone who loved Hunger Games like I did got excited about this prequel. I picked it up not realizing who the main character was. I emphasize this fact to make the point that I was immediately prejudiced against it once I found out it was about a teen President Snow. I also realized then there would no happy ending. The story was interesting, the writing amazing as usual, but I just couldn’t get invested in any of the characters. Snow had very little redeeming qualities and every time I thought that maybe he did, turned out he really didn’t. The relationship with Lucy Grey didn’t quite work for me either, not even sure why but probably because it was with Snow who even in love was a jerk. Sejanus, Tigris, and the little girl of the Covey were great characters but got lost in the shadow of egocentric Snow. There were some interesting surprises that linked to the Hunger Games but just like with the side characters, young Snow eclipsed all else.
This book must have been so very hard to write (not easy to write a whole story around a bad guy) and I give Collins kudos for even trying. If you don’t mind reading books with unlikable characters or you are dying to know how the Hunger Games started, this might just be the book for you. Unfortunately it wasn’t for me. Collins is still one of my favorite writers and I’m sure there will be more amazing writings coming from her in the future.
I was so excited to read this book and let me tell you it didn’t disappoint! I could not wait to see why President Snow was so evil and hateful.
This book takes us to his senior year of high school. The 10th anniversary of the Hunger Games. No one wants to watch them. Now they need to make them more exciting. It was crazy to go back into the games and see a different side of the games.
This book was so good it just pulls you in and makes you want more. Sometimes the villain makes the best story.
I really hope there is more bo oks because so much is left unsaid and I want to know!!
If you are a fan of the Hunger Games this book is definitely for you. And honestly if you didn’t read them you can totally read this book.