The Hunger Games Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes | 2020 | Buy |
| The Hunger Games | 2008 | Buy |
| Catching Fire | 2009 | Buy |
| Mockingjay | 2010 | Buy |
Suzanne Collins wrote for children’s television before she wrote novels. She worked on shows like Clarissa Explains It All and created the animated series Generation O!. Her first book series, The Underland Chronicles, was middle-grade fantasy about a boy who discovers a hidden world beneath New York City. It sold well, but nothing like what came next.
The Hunger Games arrived in 2008 and immediately became a phenomenon. Collins has said the idea came from channel-surfing between reality TV competition footage and Iraq War coverage, the two blurring together in a disturbing way. The result was Panem, a future America where children fight to the death on live television while the nation watches.
The trilogy sold over 100 million copies. The film adaptations, starring Jennifer Lawrence, earned nearly $3 billion at the box office. The books are credited with launching the young adult dystopia boom of the early 2010s, spawning imitators across publishing.
Collins returned to Panem in 2020 with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel following the young Coriolanus Snow decades before the main trilogy. It was adapted into a film in 2023.
Collins is notoriously private and rarely gives interviews. She lives in Connecticut and works slowly, preferring quality over quantity. After 2020’s prequel, she announced a second prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, focusing on the 50th Hunger Games and Haymitch Abernathy’s victory.