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

1. Catching Fire

Catching Fire is the sequel to The Hunger Games, and it’s our pick for the top Hunger Games book. Catching Fire combines all of the elements of the first book’s story and adds an entirely new layer of drama, suspense, and mystery. How I look at it: The Hunger Games is the spark, the more granular story, and Catching Fire is the explosion. This is where the story within the story comes together in such an epic way.

Catching Fire features a short time jump from the end of the first book after Katniss and Peeta are crowned Victors of the Hunger Games and fanned the flames of rebellion. During their tour through Panem, social unrest grows. For the 75th Annual Hunger Games and third Quarter Quell, Katniss and Peeta are forced back into the arena to compete against former Victors, but there’s a seditious plot involving the game makers, the Victors, and others to stop President Snow once and for all, with the help of District 13.

Catching Fire features Collins’ bread and butter, another Hunger Games with higher stakes than ever, but it also sends this story in a new direction. It also introduces so many incredible new characters, including Plutarch, Finnick, Joanna, and others.

Am I in love with where the story goes after Catching Fire? Honestly, not, but the execution of the plot twist and larger reveal is so satisfying. In the last few chapters of Catching Fire, all of those threads from the first part of the story are woven together. Readers leave this story desperate to find out what happens next.