The subtitle of this book is The Hunger Games #0. However, it actually covers the 10th hunger games. It mainly takes place in the Captial. Not the glamorous Captial in the original trilogy, but instead a battered, war damaged city in the middle of being rebuilt after the district war.
Being relatively new, many changes were implemented during this Hunger Games, such as gambling, sponsor donations and television appearances for tributes. We are presented with a teenage Coriolanus Snow who is part of a new mentor system for the tributes representing the 12 districts in the Hunger Games. We learn a lot about the youth who would grow up to become the brutal President Snow, such as his experiences during the district war and the aftermath. Not to give the plot away, this book provides a clear picture of how Snow became the man he was in the original trilogy. As their family saying goes,
