The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

This book was slow for me. I think it was hard for me to get into because I was prepared the whole time for Snow to be terrible and for it not to work out with Lucy Gray. I loved Tigris and Dr. Gaul. I realized that I had actually gotten into the book and Coryo's mind when I was almost relieved that Sejanus was caught. He was stressing me out. I liked that we got to see Snow's step into poisoning and I loved that it made so much sense why he hated Katniss so much. Everything that she was reminded him of Lucy Gray. He knew Lucy had left him when she went out to pick katniss bulbs, Katniss sings the song Lucy Gray wrote about Billy Taupe, Katniss is the plucky longshot girl tribute from district 12 who gets everyone's attention and love, and her symbol is the mockingjay bird that he hates. I watched the movie right after finishing the book and I loved the casting. Lucy Gray was perfect. Some of the changes they made for the movie pissed me off though. Book Snow thought he was doing the right thing the entire time and that spoke to how he became the evil character in the trilogy. Movie Snow was making evil decisions from the get and it changed how his character came across completely. I was mostly pissed about the erasure of Ma and Clemmie. Other things like ending the games with the snake scene and having cameras in the tunnels was fine. Having Lucky played by Jason Schwartzman was the best decision they made by far. I hated book Lucky. Overall, I don't feel like this book was necessary, but I'm not mad about reading it.