Sunrise of the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Author: Suzanne Collins
Published: 2025
Genre: YA Fantasy, Dystopia
Synopsis From Goodreads:
When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight…and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
Books in Series:
1. The Hunger Games
2. Catching Fire
3. Mockingjay
4. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
5. Sunrise on the Reaping
My Take:
Haymitch, oh Haymitch, now we know why you are the way you are. And of course it wouldn’t be as simple as just being in a Hunger Games, even though that would be more than enough for anyone. Because nothing is ever simple in Panem.
Because we know where Haymitch ends up…alone, drunk, and bitter…you know heading into this book that it will not necessarily have a happy, uplifting ending. You truly get a sense of Haymitch’s mental state at the end, and it is quite dark and rather fatalistic. But it does make sense as it dovetails quite neatly into who he is during Katniss’ Hunger Games. And that is one of the triumphs of this book. It is the bridge between Snow’s 10th Hunger Games in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and Katniss’s 74th Hunger Games in the original book. It melds the history and the raw brutality of the 10th Games with the glittering, deceptive “entertainment” of the 74th. You have remembrances of people, songs, and events from the past. You are introduced to characters we have never met in person, such as Katniss’ father, and to characters that are well-known and recognizable in their later years, such as Katniss’ mother, Wiress, Beetee, Plutarch, and Effie. Because of this bridge, we have now come full circle. We have a greater understanding of the world into which Katniss appears at the beginning of The Hunger Games. We can agree with Haymitch when he tells Katniss after the 75th Hunger Games that what the tributes had done wasn’t ultimately about her. That it was so much bigger. She was just the last piece, the spark of a fuse that had been prepared and laid by many people stretching back to the 10th Hunger Games, if not even farther. By working together, seemingly impossible things could be possible.
Language:
There was very minimal language in this book. I counted two instances of h___ and four of jacka__.
Sexual Content:
There is the mention of kisses and holding their loved one in their arms.
Drug/Alcohol Use:
Haymitch helps an older lady make moonshine, or white liquor. There is a discussion of nepenthe, an old alcoholic drink, along with the uses of the liquor available in District 12 and a frank depiction of the lifestyle it can lead to. We see Haymitch well on his path to alcoholism at the end of the book.
Violence:
Well, it is a Hunger Games novel. Peacekeepers shoot people and use stun guns, along with mentions of hangings and whippings in the past. Someone is beaten with a riding crop, and someone dies in an accident before the arena. Then there are a variety of deaths in the arena: some by “natural causes,” others by animal attacks, and many by the other tributes. And there are other deaths and threats of death or injury before, during, and after the arena.
Plot/Storytelling:
This is a plot-based story told from a one-point perspective. It is fast-paced and intense, although it gets bogged down a little towards the end as the author incorporates much, if not all, of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe into the book.
More From This Author
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Author: Suzanne CollinsPublished: 2020Genre: YA FantasySynopsis From Goodreads: It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in...