The Molly Fyde Saga
science fiction
Series · dystopian
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins has 5 known books (5 published) and is best read in publication order, starting with The Hunger Games (2008). The latest book with a fully recorded publication date is Sunrise on the Reaping.
- Books
- 5 known books (5 novels)
- Published
- 5
- First published
- 2008
- Status
- completed
- Shelved under
- Science Fiction
- Last checked
Start here: The Hunger Games (2008) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games (2008) opens Suzanne Collins's trilogy: sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her little sister's place in Panem's televised fight-to-the-death, launching both a survival thriller and the slow-burn revolution that defines the series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Hunger Games - Book 2:
Catching Fire
Catching Fire, published in 2009, is the second book in the trilogy, pushing Katniss further into her unwilling role as a symbol of resistance against the Capitol's Machiavellian President Snow.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Catching Fire - Book 3:
Mockingjay
Mockingjay closes the original trilogy in 2010 at 424 pages, pulling Katniss into open war against the Capitol and paying off the series' ideas about propaganda, spectacle, and the cost of violence on a child soldier.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Mockingjay - Book 4:
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, arriving a decade after Mockingjay in 2020, is the first of two prequels, pulling the lens back onto a young, still-sympathetic Coriolanus Snow during the 10th Hunger Games.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Book 5:
Sunrise on the Reaping
Sunrise on the Reaping (2025) is the second prequel, following a teenage Haymitch Abernathy through the notorious 50th Games -- together with Ballad, extending Panem's history nearly seventy years before Katniss's own story.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Sunrise on the Reaping
The order the story's events happen in, novellas slotted where they belong.
- Book 1:
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, arriving a decade after Mockingjay in 2020, is the first of two prequels, pulling the lens back onto a young, still-sympathetic Coriolanus Snow during the 10th Hunger Games.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Book 2:
Sunrise on the Reaping
Sunrise on the Reaping (2025) is the second prequel, following a teenage Haymitch Abernathy through the notorious 50th Games -- together with Ballad, extending Panem's history nearly seventy years before Katniss's own story.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Sunrise on the Reaping - Book 3:
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games (2008) opens Suzanne Collins's trilogy: sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her little sister's place in Panem's televised fight-to-the-death, launching both a survival thriller and the slow-burn revolution that defines the series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Hunger Games - Book 4:
Catching Fire
Catching Fire, published in 2009, is the second book in the trilogy, pushing Katniss further into her unwilling role as a symbol of resistance against the Capitol's Machiavellian President Snow.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Catching Fire - Book 5:
Mockingjay
Mockingjay closes the original trilogy in 2010 at 424 pages, pulling Katniss into open war against the Capitol and paying off the series' ideas about propaganda, spectacle, and the cost of violence on a child soldier.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Mockingjay
About The Hunger Games
In the ruins of North America, the totalitarian nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a boy and a girl to fight to the death on live television, punishment for a long-ago rebellion against the Capitol. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her little sister's place in the arena, and what follows is both a survival thriller and a slow-burn revolution: Katniss becomes an unwilling symbol of resistance, is forced into a love triangle staged as much for cameras as for her own heart, and is eventually pulled into open war against the Capitol's Machiavellian President Snow.
Suzanne Collins built the trilogy around sharp ideas — reality-TV spectacle, propaganda, the cost of violence on a child soldier, the seduction of power — wrapped in a fast, brutal survival plot that made it a defining YA dystopia. Two prequels, published years later, pull the lens back onto the making of the Games and the Capitol itself: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows a young, still-sympathetic Coriolanus Snow during the 10th Games, and Sunrise on the Reaping follows a teenage Haymitch Abernathy through the notorious 50th Games. Together the five books trace nearly seventy years of Panem's history and ask, repeatedly, what turns a person into a monster — or a martyr.
Frequently asked questions
How many books are in The Hunger Games series?
Five: the original trilogy — The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay — plus two standalone prequels, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping.
What order should I read The Hunger Games in?
Publication order. Read the original trilogy first, then the two prequels. The prequels are set earlier in Panem's history but are written for readers who already know how the trilogy ends.
Do I need to read the prequels to understand the trilogy?
No. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping are self-contained stories that deepen the world and its villains, but the original trilogy stands completely on its own.
Is The Hunger Games finished, or is another book coming?
As of August 2026 Suzanne Collins has not announced a sixth book. She has returned to Panem twice before after long gaps, so more stories aren't ruled out, but nothing beyond Sunrise on the Reaping is currently scheduled.
How does Sunrise on the Reaping connect to the original trilogy?
It follows a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy through the 50th Hunger Games (the second Quarter Quell), the event that made him the bitter, hard-drinking mentor Katniss meets decades later — and ties directly into secrets referenced in Mockingjay.
If you like The Hunger Games
Reading order last verified .