What the new 'Hunger Games' prequel 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' is about and if you should read it

• Suzanne Collins' novel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" was released on May 19, and is a prequel to her popular "The Hunger Games" trilogy.
• The book follows a young Coriolanus Snow, who fans will recognize as the future President Snow, the antagonist of the original series.
• It takes place 64 years before the events of "The Hunger Games" and shows how the games became a terrifying spectacle.
• Elements of "The Hunger Games" (like roses and mockingjays) are explained in greater detail.
• Casual readers may find the book's 540-page length trying.
• It's still an engaging read with rich worldbuilding sure to appeal to fans.

It's been almost a decade since "The Hunger Games" author Suzanne Collins last released a book in her massively popular dystopian series. Now, she's back with "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," a prequel story with a surprising protagonist — President Snow, the antagonist of the original "Hunger Games" trilogy.

But in this book, he's only a young man who's desperate to reclaim the power and fortune that his family had before a civil war (between the wealthy Capitol government and the rebellious Districts under their control) ravaged the futuristic country of Panem.

So, why write a prequel about the series' main villain? How does this book connect to the world of the original series, and what's the actual plot? Is it even worth reading?

Insider read "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" to figure out just that. Here are all of your questions about the latest entry in the "Hunger Games" universe, answered.

What's it about?

"The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" takes place 64 years before the events of the "Hunger Games" series.

Just like in the original trilogy, the so-called Hunger Games exist as a way to punish the 12 districts for fighting against the Capitol. Two children are chosen from every district to fight to the death. However in the prequel, it hasn't yet become the spectacle it would grow into in later years.

The prequel opens on the morning of the reaping, where 24 tributes will be selected to fight in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is set to mentor one of them and hopes that this shot at glory will let him rescue his esteemed family from the relatively penniless life they've led since the recent war.

Snow is initially horrified when he's assigned to mentor the female tribute from District 12, who hails from the country's poorest region and seems unlikely to win. However, when his mentee, the charismatic young folk singer Lucy Gray, shows promise in the face of the brutal early Hunger Games, he plots to help her win — and use her to make himself a powerful figure in the process.

How is this related to the 'Hunger Games' series?

With his calculated approach to the Hunger Games and history of ingesting the same poison that he often uses to murder his opponents, President Snow made for an eerily memorable villain in Collins' trilogy. This prequel only takes place over the course of one year in his life, but gives readers a good sense of how the young man was able to manipulate his way into a position of power.

If you're worried that "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" attempts to somehow redeem the character by giving him a tragic backstory (à la Anakin Skywalker in the "Star Wars" prequels), don't be. In his mind he might be a hero fighting to save Lucy Gray, but Collins makes it abundantly clear that Snow is a cold, ruthless teenager well on his way to becoming the cruel tyrant we first meet in "The Hunger Games."

Making Snow the main character also gives the book a surprising, dark sense of humor. Collins seems to know that he's a slimy choice for a protagonist, but his unimpressed reactions to the Capitol's tacky attempts at spectacle make his perspective engaging nonetheless.

Perhaps even more than it tells Snow's backstory, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" explains the creation of the Hunger Games as we come to know them.

Having just won a long war against the districts, the Capitol lacks the resources to make the Games into more than a brutal, minimalist punishment — the 24 tributes are housed in a filthy zoo enclosure, with little to do before they're thrown into a literal sports arena filled only with a handful of weapons.

Snow notes how hardly anyone in all of Panem watches the event — it's such a bluntly cruel punishment that even Capitol citizens find it hard to stomach. As he strategizes about how to best endear Lucy Gray to the public, Snow realizes that the Capitol might care more about the Games if they cared about the tributes as people.

As he brainstorms how to do so, many ideas that can be found in the original trilogy emerge — Capitol citizens can bet on the winner and send them gifts in the Arena, and tribute interviews persuade viewers to care about the kids' origin stories and alliances.

Are any original characters in here?

Since "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" takes place 64 years before "The Hunger Games" begins, most of the characters from the original trilogy aren't alive yet.

Dedicated "Hunger Games" fans will recognize Snow's older cousin, Tigris, who appears towards the end of "Mockingjay" and allows Katniss to hide in her Capitol shop during the rebels' attack on the Capitol.

Some more recognizable characters' family members also make appearances. Lucky Flickerman, the man who first hosts the Hunger Games, is presumably related to Caesar Flickerman, who hosts the Games in the original trilogy.

But rather than featuring many familiar characters, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" instead delves into the history of several important elements of the "Hunger Games" world.

Throughout the original trilogy, Katniss' instrumental role in bringing down her country's authoritarian regime is associated with mockingjays — a new species of birds created when jabberjays, genetically engineered birds that the Capitol failed to use as weapons and left to die off in the wild, mated with mockingbirds and lived on against the government's will.

Mockingjays' significant origins are explained in greater detail in the prequel, as is Snow's eventual hatred of the birds.

While Katniss obviously isn't present, the tubular plant for which she's named briefly comes into play, and so do the songs she sings. "Deep In the Meadow," the District 12 lullaby that Katniss sings to Prim and Rue, is featured in "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," as well as the song "The Hanging Tree" ( which was introduced in "Mockingjay").

Since Snow is the protagonist of this book, readers predictably learn about how motifs associated with him in the first three books (like white roses and poison) come into play.

What's the point of the book?

The first three "Hunger Games" books are political allegories for our own world — Collins has even said that she got the idea for the series while flipping back and forth between Iraq War coverage and a reality TV competition.

"The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is more interested in the philosophy of how someone could possibly buy into the logic of something as horrifying as the Hunger Games, and even delude people into appreciating it.

"Snow's authoritarian convictions grew out of the experiences of his childhood," Collins said in an interview with Scholastic. "Is he a product of nature or nurture? Everyone of his generation experienced trauma, loss, deprivation. And yet [they] turned out very differently."

Our protagonist's idea to coerce people into caring about the Games by putting the veneer of an appealing narrative atop it also forces readers to interrogate their own interest in the events of the original books.

Watching the tributes in "The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes" be treated as little more than animals is much less engaging than the tribute parade, fancy dresses, and plucky underdog stories that we're used to seeing in a "Hunger Games" book. But by somehow missing the propaganda elements of the Hunger Games that were easier to swallow, are we any better than the people of the Capitol?

Collins even makes sure to include a few parallels to modern-day America for good measure —the reaping takes place on July 4, and the tributes in the zoo enclosure (much like many immigrant children at the US border) are described as "kids in cages."

So, should I read it?

It depends. The book's unnecessarily dense, 517-page length may deter casual readers, or those who would prefer not to spend so much time in a fictional future dictator's head. Since the story mostly sticks to the Capitol instead of following a tribute into the Games themselves, some will likely find that it lacks the immediate urgency that makes the original books such compelling page-turners.

Even if it's not an essential addition to the "Hunger Games" series, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'" clever exploration of the world and how its perverse forms of entertainment and control came to be are bound to satisfy fans.

It may not be a particularly comforting form of escapism, but Collins' uneasy, thought-provoking prequel is absorbing all the same.