One of the best order to learn The Starvation Video games novels in earlier than Dawn on the Reaping comes out

Earlier this week, Hunger Games followers around the globe have been starstruck by the official trailer for the most recent installment within the Starvation Video games franchise: Dawn on the Reaping. The prequel follows a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy as he is thrust into the Capitol’s second Quarter Quell, the place twice as many teenage tributes than traditional are whisked away to the Starvation Video games to struggle to the loss of life.

We lastly get a glimpse of the particular person Haymitch was once earlier than the fiftieth Starvation Video games, how he turned the person we grew to know in The Starvation Video games trilogy, and the cracks within the basis of what we thought was a rock-solid entrance the Capitol introduced. Lengthy earlier than Katniss Everdeen, there have been different sparks making an attempt to catch fireplace at midnight.

Stacked with stars like Elle Fanning, Ralph Fiennes, Mckenna Grace, Joseph Zada, and extra, the Dawn on the Reaping film brings characters new and outdated again to life on the massive display. However guide readers know that there is way more element between the pages than on the silver display, so to get the very best expertise, you may wish to learn each single Starvation Video games guide earlier than the film comes out on November 20, 2026.

However there are prequels, sequels, and many debate on learn them. I consider there’s just one order if you need each little trace and element to make your jaw drop — listed below are all of the Starvation Video games books and the perfect order to learn them in.

What number of Starvation Video games books are there?

5 completely different books, 100 completely different heartbreaks

There are presently 5 Starvation Video games novels: The Starvation Video games (guide 1), Catching Hearth (guide 2), Mockingjay (guide 3), A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (prequel 1), and Dawn on the Reaping (prequel 2). The primary guide, The Starvation Video games, was launched in late 2008, and was adopted by Catching Hearth in 2009 and Mockingjay in 2010. Suzanne made positive to have a fast turnout, and followers could not get sufficient.

Ten years after Mockingjay (and 4 live-action films that introduced Panem to life on-screen), Suzanne Collins bestowed a brand-new story on Starvation Video games followers: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel detailing the early days of the Starvation Video games custom and following a younger Coriolanus Snow, who would develop into some of the attention-grabbing (and acquainted) villains in fashionable literature. Not solely does it additionally element his difficult relationship with Lucy Grey, a tribute from District 12 chosen to compete within the tenth Starvation Video games, nevertheless it additionally affords a better take a look at the construction of the early video games and Capitol life from the within. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was shortly tailored right into a film solely three years later.

And the dystopian writer wasn’t completed but. In summer time 2024, each a brand new prequel and its film adaptation have been introduced on the identical day. It was known as Dawn on the Reaping, and it might inform the story of Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12 victor of the fiftieth Starvation Video games, and Katniss’s future mentor. Followers have been ecstatic (myself included) to study the whole lot concerning the second Quarter Quell. The guide got here out in March 2025, and was extra detailed, devastating, and tragic than anybody might have predicted. Now, the film’s official trailer is out, and readers are on the sting of their seats to see the characters delivered to life by such a proficient and book-accurate solid.

One of the best order to learn all of the Starvation Video games novels

Two choices, however just one is true for those who’re studying for the primary time

As a result of the occasions of A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Dawn on the Reaping happen earlier than the unique Starvation Video games trilogy, you would possibly suppose that it is a good suggestion to learn the books in chronological order (beginning with the prequels). If it is your first time studying, I can’t warn you towards doing this sufficient. Initially, the top of Dawn on the Reaping comprises spoilers for Katniss’s story — actually, whenever you attain the top of the novel, you notice that it was the older model of Haymitch’s memoir.

A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, whereas it particulars the earliest Starvation Video games that we all know of (the tenth), is not essentially a guide concerning the video games in any respect — it serves as extra of an perception into who President Snow was and the way he got here to be the villain we all know. The protagonist, Lucy Grey, additionally helps set main themes and particulars that can develop into crucial in each Katniss and Haymitch’s tales and in District 12 as a complete.

Despite the fact that the unique trilogy comes after, the prequels aren’t in any respect required to know Suzanne Collins’s world-building. The truth is, Collins is thought for her consideration to element, unreliable narrators, and particularly warnings about propaganda — for those who knew about any of the occasions earlier than Katniss’s story, it might spoil the emotional impression that floored hundreds of thousands of readers around the globe again and again.

Even for those who’ve already seen the films, studying the books for the primary time on this order will nonetheless ship these jaw-dropping moments:

1. The Hunger Games
2. Catching Fire
3. Mockingjay
4. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
5. Sunrise on the Reaping

That is the order of publication, and the very best studying order for first-time readers or anybody new to the Starvation Video games novels. Nevertheless, for those who’re a seasoned fan seeking to do a reread to memorize each little element earlier than the Dawn on the Reaping film comes out in November, would possibly I recommend the chronological studying order:

1. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
2. Dawn on the Reaping
3. The Starvation Video games
4. Catching Hearth
5. Mockingjay

If you happen to’ve already learn the books, studying the sequence in chronological order won’t solely enable you to keep on prime of the timeline, but additionally put every character’s arc into true linear perspective. As a seasoned Everlark shipper and Starvation Video games fan since 2008, I will be doing my reread in chronological order — probably subsequent to a field of tissues.