The Hunger Games takes place after the destruction of North America, in a nation known as Panem. Panem consists of a wealthy Capitol and twelve surrounding, poorer districts. District 12, where the book begins, is located in the coal-rich region that was formerly Appalachia.

As punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol, in which a 13th district was destroyed, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district are selected by annual lottery to participate in the Hunger Games, a televised event in which the participants, or “tributes”, must fight to the death in a dangerous, outdoor arena, controlled by the Capitol, until only one remains. The story follows 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12, who volunteers for the 74th annual Hunger Games in place of her younger sister, Primrose. Also selected from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, a baker’s son whom Katniss knows from school and who once gave her bread when her family was starving.

Katniss and Peeta are taken to the Capitol, where their drunken mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the 50th Hunger Games, instructs them to watch and learn the talents of the other tributes. They are then publicly displayed to the Capitol audience in a televised session with interviewer Caesar Flickerman. During this time, Peeta reveals on-air his long-time unrequited love for Katniss. Katniss believes this to be a ploy to gain audience support for the Games, which can be crucial for survival, as audience members are encouraged to send gifts like food, medicine, and tools to favored tributes during the Games. The Games begin with eleven of the 24 tributes dying in the first day, while Katniss relies on her well-practiced hunting and outdoor skills to survive. As the games continue, the tribute death toll increases. A few days later, Katniss develops an alliance with a twelve year-old girl from the agricultural District 11, Rue, who reminds Katniss of her sister Prim. The alliance is short-lived when Rue is killed by another tribute, whom Katniss shoots through the neck with an arrow before comforting Rue as she dies. At Rue’s request, Katniss sings to her, and then spreads flowers over her body as a sign of respect, and of disgust towards the Capitol.

Supposedly due to Katniss and Peeta’s beloved image in the minds of the audience as “star-crossed lovers”, a rule change is announced midway through the Games, stating that two tributes from the same district can win the Hunger Games as a pair. Upon hearing this, Katniss searches for Peeta and eventually finds him wounded. As she nurses him back to health, she acts the part of a young girl falling in love to gain more favor with the audience and, consequently, gifts from her sponsors. When the couple are finally the last two tributes, the Gamemakers reverse the rule change in an attempt to force them into a dramatic finale, where one must kill the other to win. Katniss, in the hopes that the Gamemakers would rather have two victors than none, retrieves highly poisonous berries known as “nightlock” from her pouch and offers some to Peeta. Upon realizing that Katniss and Peeta mean to commit suicide, the Gamemakers announce that both will be the victors of the 74th Hunger Games.

Although she survives the ordeal in the arena and is treated to a hero’s welcome in the Capitol, Katniss is warned by Haymitch that she has now become a political target after defying her society’s authoritarian leaders so publicly. Afterwards, Peeta is heartbroken when he learns that Katniss’ actions in the arena were part of a calculated ploy to earn sympathy from the audience. However, Katniss is unsure of her own feelings, and realizes that she is dreading the moment when she and Peeta will go their separate ways.

Catching Fire:

After winning the 74th Hunger Games in the previous novel, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return home to District 12, the poorest sector in the fictional country of Panem. On the day that Katniss and Peeta are to start a “Victory Tour” of the country, she is visited by President Snow. President Snow explains that he is angry with her for threatening to commit suicide with Peeta at the end of the last Hunger Games, which permitted them both to win. President Snow tells Katniss that when she defied the Capitol, she created talk of rebellion in the districts. He threatens to kill her family and friends if she cannot prove to everyone in Panem that her act was not one of defiance, but that she was instead driven by an intense love for Peeta.

The first stop on the Victory Tour is District 11, the home of Katniss’ friend and ally in the Hunger Games, Rue, before she died. During the ceremony, Katniss delivers a quick speech to the people of District 11, thanking them for their tributes. When she is done, an old man whistles a tune that Rue used in the arena to tell Katniss that she was safe. The song acts as a signal and everyone salutes Katniss using the same gesture that she used to say farewell to Rue. Katniss is taken away, but not before she sees Peacekeepers shoot the whistling man in the head. Katniss and Peeta then proceed to travel to all of the twelve districts and the Capitol. During an interview, Peeta proposes to Katniss publicly, hoping to settle the dispute between Katniss and President Snow. Despite this, Katniss learns that their attempts of subduing rebellion in the districts have failed. Shortly after returning to District 12, Katniss encounters two runaways from District 8. They explain a theory that District 13 was not wiped out by the Capitol, due to its residents going underground, and that stock footage of 13 is played instead of new film on television. Later, it is announced that, for the 75th Hunger Games, 24 victors from previous years will be forced to compete once again. This is in honor of the “Quarter Quell”: an event that occurs every 25th year of the Games and allows the Capitol to introduce a twist. Knowing that she and Peeta will both be competing in the Games a second time, Katniss decides that she will devote herself to protecting Peeta.

During the Games, Katniss and Peeta join up with two other previous victors, Finnick Odair: a 24-year-old man who successfully survived the Games at the age of 14 and Mags: Finnick’s 80-year-old mentor, both from District 4. After Mags’ death, Katniss, Peeta and Finnick join forces with Johanna Mason, a sarcastic and often cruel victor from District 7, and Beetee and Wiress, an older couple from District 3 who are said to be “exceptionally smart”. Wiress soon proves her genius by revealing to Katniss that the arena is arranged like a clock, with all of the arena’s disasters occurring on a timed chart. After Wiress is killed, Katniss learns of Beetee’s plan to harness lightning in order to supposedly electrocute two other contenders. In the final chapters, Katniss directs the lightning at the force field that contains the arena, thereby destroying the arena and resulting in her temporary paralysis. When she wakes up, she is being transported to District 13: a place that is widely thought to no longer exist. She is joined by Finnick, Beetee, Gale and Haymitch but learns that Peeta, Johanna and Enobaria (a tribute from District 2) have been captured by the Capitol. Katniss is informed that there had been a plan between most of the contestants to break out of the arena and that Beetee had been attempting to destroy the force field in the same way that she did. The book ends with Katniss’ best friend, Gale, informing her that, though he got her family out in time, District 12 has been bombed and destroyed.

Mockingjay:

After her rescue by the rebels of District 13, Katniss is convinced to become “the Mockingjay”: a symbol of the rebellion against the ruling Capitol. As part of a deal, she demands that the leader of District 13, President Coin, grant immunity to all of the victors of the Hunger Games. She also demands the right to kill President Snow herself. In a daring rescue, Peeta and others previously captured are rescued from the Capitol. However, Peeta has been brainwashed into believing Katniss is the enemy and tries to strangle her upon their reunion in District 13.

The rebels, including Katniss, take control of the districts and finally begin an assault on the Capitol itself. However, an assault on a “safe” Capitol neighborhood goes wrong, and Katniss and her team flee further into the Capitol with the intent of finding and killing President Snow. Many members of Katniss’ team are killed, including Finnick Odair. Eventually, Katniss finds herself pressing on alone towards Snow’s mansion, which has supposedly been opened to shelter Capitol children (but is actually intended to provide human shields for Snow). Afterwards, bombs placed in supply packages kill many of these children and a rebel medical team, including Katniss’ sister, Prim. Prim’s death scars Katniss to the point of mental instability.

President Snow is tried and found guilty, but he tells Katniss that the final assault that killed Prim was ordered by President Coin, not the Capitol. Katniss realizes that if this is true, the bombing may have been the result of a plan originally developed by her friend, Gale. Katniss realizes that she will never be able to look at Gale the same way, regardless of whether or not he was directly involved in Prim’s death. Katniss remembers a conversation with Snow in which they agreed not to lie to each other. When she is supposed to execute Snow, she realizes that he was telling the truth and kills Coin instead. A riot ensues and Snow is found dead, having possibly choked on his own blood or been trampled in the crowd. Katniss is acquitted due to her apparent insanity and returns to her home in District 12, along with others who are attempting to rebuild it. Peeta returns months after as well, having largely recovered from his brainwashing. Finally, Katniss surmises that falling in love with Peeta was inevitable, as he had always represented to her the promise of a better future, rather than the destruction she now associates with Gale. She says that she didn’t need Gale’s fire, as she already had it herself; she needed Peeta, who symbolized the hope she needed to survive. Together with Haymitch they create a book filled with previous tributes and others who died in the war so that they will not be forgotten.

In the epilogue, Katniss speaks as an adult, more than fifteen years later. Katniss and Peeta are still together having grown back together after the war in the last chapter when Peeta returns to District 12. The two are married and they have two unnamed children together. The Hunger Games are over, but she dreads the day her children learn the details of their parents’ involvement in both the Games and the war. Peeta and Katniss experience flashbacks of the Games sometimes. When she feels distressed, Katniss plays a comforting but repetitive “game,” reminding herself of every good thing that she has ever seen someone do. The series ends with the sentiment, “But there are much worse games to play.”