After I put this book down…I cried. Not just for Haymitch. But for everyone else who are having their friends and family ripped from their lives by corrupt officers, armies…there’s a lot we bottle up sometimes. For a fair bit of this book, I was expecting a slightly lower rating than what I ended up giving it, but the conclusion was so heartbreaking, so unfair, so haunting, that it makes the book into one of those rare works of art that cuts straight to the core and leaves its menacing mark.
This is probably going to be one of the most, if not the most hyped book of 2025, and this is a case where the hype ends up deserved. Books like Sunrise on the Reaping definitely do favors to the world; sometimes we have to look at ourselves, and know things are really screwed up, no matter how much we try to kid ourselves.
The Hunger Games trilogy was one of my earliest franchise reads, which makes me sound old and young at the same time for some reason. I mean, I’d read them before I was a book blogger, right when I was starting to hit puberty. And while I do like the books, and especially grew to appreciate the first one, I find them more average than outstanding. Let me put it this way; I love the concept, and this book reminded me of why I do. But in terms of writing about the unfairness, dread and terror about being sent to the slaughter, I felt there were times where the narration was too calm.
A big thing about Catching Fire is the simple aspect that Katniss doesn’t take a long time being furious and ravenous about being sent back to the arena. It’s possible Collins went for this approach because 1) These characters have witnessed death their whole lives, so maybe even if it’s them this time, they’re habituated to it, or 2) That they’re trying to distract themselves with whatever is happening other than the Games so they don’t fall apart. But I still would’ve upped the horror. And I felt that Mockingjay was a good book but sometimes underutilized the thought that this might be the chance for The Hunger Games to end after 75 years. I felt the movies did a bit better job at telling Katniss and Peeta’s and the rebellion’s journey.
Still, I was stoked to read Sunrise on the Reaping. I’ve always been interested in Haymitch’s games, even more so when we learn a teensy bit in Catching Fire and when Woody Harrelson really personified him as a washed-up traumatized lonely sole victor. I knew it was going to be sad.
Like the first book, this one takes its time before getting into the games, and with there being twice as many tributes this time, I was hoping for more time in the arena. The book starts off kind of slow. But after I put it down, I realized it was to make us really get to know these tributes, because this arena might be the biggest death trap of them all. In fact, while I haven’t yet gotten around to The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (good movie though, Rachel Zegler carries the whole thing as Lucy Gray), this is by far the saddest Hunger Games story yet. It is a story of trauma, acceptance of death, manipulation, having the people who mean the world to you get ripped from your arms, and being used as a propaganda tool, just like The Hunger Games was made for. This is not a Hunger Games with a sense that love can stay alive. Haymitch is able to really bond with one of his fellow District 12 tributes, as well as additional allies, and each of their deaths left a hole in my stomach.
I also appreciated the return of major characters but a generation younger, just like how Songbirds & Snakes introduces us to Panem two generations before Katniss and Peeta.
I don’t want to spoil more, but Sunrise on the Reaping is a book that, even if it takes its time before getting to the games, becomes unforgettable. It puts an additional perspective into Haymitch that makes him one of the most tragic heroes I’ve ever read. There was more than one point where I imagined being him, a friend’s lifeless body in his arms, and screaming into the sky, wanting this misery to be over, cursing the world for allowing something like this to happen. Just like it did to me, Sunrise on the Reaping will probably give you a good cry. I love the book as much as I hate it.
My grade: 4 and a half stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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