Book Review | Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise On The Reaping

By Suzanne Collins

Scholastic  |  2025  |  416 pages

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

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 honour 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 will be personally billing Suzanne Collins for my therapy bill because jesus Christ, what was that absolute explosion of heartache??

I knew, going into this book that it was going to be sad; in the original trilogy, there are several points dropped about Haymitch’s games and what happened to him in the before, during and after so some of it, some of the major stuff, we kinda already knew beforehand.

But… my God, the sheer heartbreak of it… it was so much worse to read in detail than in passing information.

I was amazed at how easily the game was rigged for his year; the fact that he was a replacement and had he not got involved with skirmish that happened at the reaping, he would have walked away unscathed. It’s mad that his year was set up from an illegal reaping. 

I’m trying to think of the best way to voice my thoughts whilst still making sense so I will try my best.

The Quarter Quell. I’ll start there.

The focus on mutts and poison for Haymitch’s year was super interesting considering poisoned berries is actually what fucks Snow over when it’s Katniss and Peeta’s year. 

It was so disheartening to see Haymitch basically become the failed mockingjay attempt. Like, it’s good because at least those who have read the original books know that the capitol does eventually get taken down as does Snow, but the fact we had to see Haymitch go through these games with the false hope of bringing the arena down was just heartbreaking.

He was so interesting to watch in the games themselves. He goes back and forth with what he is doing but ultimately, he is fueled to wreck the arena and he risks it all several times to take the arena down. He definitely is what I’ve seen people call him and Katniss online. He and Katniss were the same but Katniss just got luckier than he did.

I don’t know why I go into these books, loving certain characters and some part of my brain always expects that they’ll all make it out of the games unharmed. I don’t know why I seem to think this since the logical part of my brain knows that that can’t obviously happen.

The characters… oh boy. The characters in this book were so good. I loved the fact we saw familiar faces as well as new faces. 

Miss Effie Trinket?? Excuse me?? What are you doing here?? I was so happily surprised when I read her name. I don’t think I ever really queried whether or not her and Haymitch knew each other prior to the 74th Hunger Games. I suppose it makes sense that they would since Effie is the District 12 presenter which, if it wasn’t explicitly said, I can only assume she takes over from Druscilla after Haymitch’s year.

I loved seeing her in this book and I was left wanting to know the full extent of what it is her family members did to lead to her and her sister being disgraced. That intrigued me. I know they mentioned about being a rebel sympathizer and that wouldn’t surprise me, considering her Effie quickly joined the rebel side due to her victors but I do wish we could have heard more on that.

Mags and Wiress??? I was like screaming. I was so thrown to have them as well as Beetee show up?? I was so quick to forget that there were older tributes from when Haymitch would have been a teenager. Either way, seeing them in the book… I was hit in the feels. However, to know that the torture they experienced in the aftermath was likely what led them to be in the way they were when we meeting them in Catching Fire… that saddened me.

New faces were also appreciated. I’ll be honest, I didn’t care a massive deal for Wyatt… his dad was a piece of shit but otherwise, I was a tad indifferent. 

Louella… I was so upset when she died like the fact she didn’t even die in the arena, she died in the capitol and then literally switching her out for a brainwashed body double was WILD. I was literally queasy reading about that. Lou Lou was a lost soul in her own right though and I felt for her as well considering she didn’t know anything about herself anymore.

The fact that Haymitch calls Katniss ‘Sweetheart’ has such a different meaning now and yes, I will eternally be sobbing over it as well. I was so sad about her death, honestly.

Maysilee… GURL. You and Johanna Mason would have been absolute BESTIES. I fucking loved her. I know she was introduced as the snobby, stuck up district girl, but I was immediately rooting for her because of the way she absolutely TRASHED on Drusilla like she had her cracked. I was cackling at her attitude and no nonsense ways. When she slaps Drusilla, I legit held my breath but was clapping for her.

Again, I was upset when she died because like Ampert, it had obviously been organized but it fell more flat with me. She had managed to deflect battles and death at others hands and yet swans took her out. Idk, I just wish she had had a more climactic exit. She deserved to go out fighting properly; not fighting birds.

Ampert… BUDDY… that was horrific. I genuinely gasped in his death and covered my mouth. I knew there would be something with mutts, especially some small creature like it since Haymitch mentioned it a couple times in the start of the book but holy fuck… the way they took him out was just grim. Oh, and Beetee… that was so upsetting. The fact they arranged it so he would have to watch his own son die was ruthless.

Do you know what death got me? Wellie’s. The fact she was small and frail and then got BEHEADED was absolutely sickening and wild. I was so shook from that. To the point, my eyes were as wide as plates, bro. I knew she would die but it was depicted so vividly and I was just… shook.

Lenore Dove was also a character that I enjoyed reading about. The fact Haymitch had so many people he loved and cared for is wild since we all know where he is at when we first meeting him in the first Hunger Games book. 

So, it was mostly the covey stuff where I was legit so happy I read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Had I not, I feel like I would have been really lost. I’ve seen people say they didn’t read TBOSAS beforehand and they understood everything perfectly and I’m like bro, no. You literally couldn’t because you don’t have the pre-existing knowledge and connections between these characters?

But, I am so glad I read it before and I recommend anyone reading SOTR to read TBOSAS first as I felt it really enriched the story and heightened the emotional aspect to it as well. 

Lastly on characters, you best believe I was losing my shit reading Burdock Everdeen and Astrid March. I was immediately like HANG ON A DAMN MINUTE. Ugh, and then when he talks about Katniss towards the very ending was just… my heart, man. It was so nostalgic and the minute I read Everdeen and Mellark, I was just transported back to my teenage self. 

Now… the most horrible, in my opinion. That ending and the epilogue specifically…

The way I cried when he got back to District 12 and he mentions seeing smoke, I was already gasping, knowing what had happened. And, if I had read TBOSAS beforehand and felt any shed of concern for Snow, that immediately vanished upon the ending and reading what he did to all of Haymitch’s loved ones. 

He set his house on fire, ensuring his ma and Sid were inside… like what the actual fuck. It was so upsetting to read his descent into grief and depression and alcoholism. The last 50 pages of this book was purely just trauma. There was no bright side to it either and ended so bittersweetly.

And then, it got kicked up a notch by poisoning Lenore Dove. I knew it too. As soon as she picked up the bag of gumdrops, I was like NO PUT THEM DOWN. And when she said about eating the ones under her pillow from Sid, I literally closed my eyes and was like oh, fuck. 

It was so damn upsetting that he literally won, only to lose everything. And, to know he was the mockingjay attempt before Katniss is crazy. Like, he waited after all that time to enact revenge on the capitol and take them down. 

The ending wasn’t uplifting either. We see him go from being someone who didn’t even touch alcohol to how we see him present day and it is soul-crushing. To know that he fell so far in depression… ugh, Haymitch. My heart breaks. 

This book easily gets 5 stars from me because it felt like an honest telling of his story rather than any kind of fan-service. I am so glad Suzanne Collins brought Haymitch’s story to life because out of everyone, I feel his needed to be told. 

There was no a dry eye by the end of my reading of this and I will be rereading it again soon because it was just… everything. It was painful, but everything.