Title: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games #0.5)
Author: Suzanne Collins 
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publication Date: 2025
Format: Hardcover
Length:  387 pages

Read if you like: The Hunger Games trilogy, grey and black morality, sinister villains, deadly competition, heavy foreshadowing, dystopian universe

Rating: 

The Hunger Games is a rare series where every book, including the prequels, is an absolute home run. I find it’s rare for a series to maintain significant momentum in every instalment, but Collins is a true talent, both in her ability to craft such a magnificently terrifying world and to deliver a constant rotation of emotional gut punches. 

Sunrise on the Reaping is the second prequel in the series and, in my opinion, did significant justice for one of the most iconic characters in the books. Collins gives us a heart-wrenching look into what made Haymitch the bitter, twisted, drunk mentor he becomes, and by the time his story is finished unfolding, you feel emotionally raw for him with a deep sense of understanding for why he is the way he is.

I knew long before I picked this book up that I would love it and I was not disappointed. I’d read anything written about this universe, but this one hurt particularly bad in the best way.

The Book Synopsis: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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.

The Review

An unequivocal addition to The Hunger Games series, I feel like this book is going to haunt me for a long time. 

Let me start with the character work in Sunrise on the Reaping, because it is utterly fantastic. We know Haymitch, and even when he’s unlikeable you’ve always had sympathy for him, but wow does that ever level up with this book. I loved the way that Collins demonstrated his rebel tendencies back to his games, something I didn’t anticipate but added so much more depth and context to the actions that we see from Haymitch later in the series. It wasn’t until I read this that I realized there hadn’t been a lot of context as to why Haymitch resorts to such dramatic measures in the original trilogy, you just assume that being a part of The Hunger Games is sufficient trauma to want to rebel. The depth of the agony that he experiences in this prequel leaves you without a shadow of a doubt as to why he would radicalize. 

The actual event itself is no less terrifying than it was the first time you saw it unfold, as Collins still makes it feel equal parts new and horrifying. Watching the Games happen, even knowing some of the minute details, is as emotionally devastating as if you went into it completely blind. Instead, it felt like a cruel thing to be getting invested in characters that you know are fated for death given that in this Hunger Games, we know there is no hope. You want to cheer for Maysilee, you want Ampert to make it, you want the whole Newcomers group to stand some sort of chance, but instead, you see their defiance punished over and over again. We know how this ends and it’s tragic, but it doesn’t stop your hopes from building just to be dramatically crushed. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also cover how well Collins can create a distinctly dystopian universe that also presents a direct commentary on past and present political structures in the real world. It’s what gives her work such power, what makes it feel so horrifyingly eerie. The entire novel is a commentary on the devastation that authoritarian rule has, particularly on those without power, and those who are weakest in the regime, but other observations also felt like creepy takes on current culture and the subtle ways that it can shift to something dramatically wrong. Authoritarianism and fascism don’t always come exclusively at the end of the barrel of a gun, at least not initially. There’s a fine line between influencing a narrative and controlling it, between promotion and propaganda, and watching the way the Captiol works to suppress dissent and enforce its mandate through more and more progressively aggressive means, while extreme, have notable parallels to regimes today. It’s stress-inducing, disconcerting, and incredibly important that people like Collins continue to draw attention to it. 

This was an unbelievable prequel. I loved every second even if it totally broke my heart. I would genuinely read anything that Collins writes in this universe, this was an easy 5 stars for me.