All 4 Hunger Games books ranked worst to best (including A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins is one of the most popular YA book series of all time. The series was also adapted into four and soon-to-be five successful movies. With The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in theaters on Nov. 17, we thought it would be fun to rank all four of The Hunger Games books.

We shared the list of The Hunger Games books below, along with the prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: 

• The Hunger Games (2008) 
• Catching Fire (2009) 
• Mockingjay (2010)
• A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)

Let’s get the list started with A Ball of Songbirds and Snakes, which is No. 4 in the ranking of the Hunger Games books.

4. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A Balld of Songbirds and Snakes was released in 2020, a decade after Mockingjay, the third book of Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. The book is a prequel to The Hunger Games series, and it takes place 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers for the 74th Annual Hunger Games. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is, for lack of a better phrase, the life story of Coriolanus Snow throughout his youth and young life. It explores Snow’s upbringing and paves the way into his role in the Hunger Games, his rise to power, and why he is, in some ways, the way he is when introduced in The Hunger Games. 

Overall, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a good book, and it pains me a bit to rank it as the fourth of the four Hunger Games books, but I just can’t rank it higher than any of the original trilogy. I enjoyed the story and Snow’s relationship with Lucy Baird Gray and how that shaped his life. It’s also interesting to learn a lot more about the history of Panem, the games, and how it relates to the story when Katniss comes along more than 60 years later.

The one thing I’m not a huge fan of, and it’s probably one of the main reasons I ranked A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes last, is the exploration into a terrible character’s origin story. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes does it better than most prequels, in my opinion, but it feels a little icky knowing what that character, despite the charm and charisma, grows up to be and do. It avoids the Star Wars prequel trap; that’s for sure. I will say that.