Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins // 387 pgs

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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.

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I was a little nervous going into this one since we already saw some major events of this game in Catching Fire, but I think Collins handled this one well. The ending played with my earlier suspicions about seeing this story again, like Collins anticipated that reaction and knew how to combat it in a realistic way.

Haymitch was always a fine character to me; he served well as Katniss’s mentor and showcased how traumatic winning actually is. 

With how many crammed in characters Collins put in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I was skeptical that the Game that had double the contestants would fall into that same issue of quantity over quality. I was pleasantly surprised, however; while there are a lot of characters that get named but grow irrelevant, I felt an attachment to most of them, and could recognize who they were as I saw their name pass by on a page. Collins did well in having multiple yet distinct main characters, which can be a difficult thing to balance.

Going into this book knowing that only Haymitch will survive was fun and interesting, and I couldn’t help myself feeling sad when introduced to a new tribute that I liked, knowing that there was no chance for survival. The tributes teaming together was a fresh spin, as well as Haymitch’s personal vendetta of rebellion (though that was sometimes a little confusing). I absolutely adored every District 12 tribute, which I was somewhat surprised by.

While there was some fan service, it wasn't too bothersome to me, and I liked seeing some of the interconnectivity of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and the main trilogy. It felt like a good connective bridge. The ending was also tragic, but an expected and fitting end. This book also helped me buy more into the Katniss and Haymitch connection; it shines a new and interesting light on that relationship that I would keep in mind if ever rereading the main trilogy.