The book that has captured the BookTok imagination this week is “Sunrise on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins. It’s part of the “Hunger Games” universe, and for purposes of this review, I am going to assume that you are all familiar with the original “Hunger Games.” If you’re not, I would advise that you stop reading now. There will be some mild spoilers, but I will try to avoid major ones.
As a teenager, after reading the “Hunger Games” trilogy, I always maintained that you could tell that Suzanne Collins intended “The Hunger Games” to be a standalone novel. I found her expansions of the world of Panem belabored, her politics not fully thought through, her introduction of new characters clumsy. Now that I am a bit older, perhaps I was being too hard on the original series. While I still think it’s true that the original “Hunger Games” is easily the best of her novels, it is also true that both “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” had something substantive to say. But now, the “Hunger Games” universe has expanded even further, with the prequel “A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (which I did not particularly enjoy) and the most recent addition to the saga, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” which is the long-requested story of Haymitch’s Hunger Games.
I was not among those who were clamoring for the story of Haymitch’s games. For one, his games are discussed in “Catching Fire.” For another, I was starting to feel that the main point of Collins’ work (that watching teenagers fight to the death as entertainment is disturbing) is slowly being undermined as fans demand more and more works showing different Hunger Games. There’s already demand going around for Finnick’s games, and as Collins and her publishers create more of these books for profit, one risks choking on the levels of irony in the air. However, Haymitch is one of my favorite characters from the original trilogy, and the fan response was extremely positive, so I thought I would give the book a fair shot.
Where “Sunrise on the Reaping” absolutely shines is Haymitch’s perspective and voice. While he is very different from the older Haymitch we meet in “The Hunger Games,” he is still a believable younger version of the character. He’s likeable and easy to root for, and Collins does an excellent job capturing his inner voice. The supporting characters are also an engaging group. Maysilee Donner is a classic “mean girl who has a heart” type, but her banter with Haymitch is both fun to read and adds tension since you know that she is not going to survive. In fact, all of the tributes you meet serve this purpose, as going into the book knowing Haymitch will be the only one out of the 47 tributes in the arena to leave alive adds to, rather than detracts from, the emotional stakes and dramatic tension of the story.
We also get to spend time with familiar faces from the original trilogy. Plutarch, Mags, Wiress, and Beetee are all there, as is Effie Trinket and Katniss’ father Burdock. While Effie and Burdock feel more like fan service than anything else, we learn important information about the other four characters. Beetee’s backstory is particularly tragic, and you realize just how far-reaching Plutarch’s plan likely was.
“Sunrise on the Reaping” also shines in its emotional impact. It takes a lot for a book to make me cry, and I cried three times while reading this book. The tone of the writing is a bit more mature than the original trilogy, and I would go as far as to say that this is the most brutal individual “Hunger Games” book. The amount of physical and emotional torture Haymitch goes through, combined with the typical trauma of the Hunger Games, is unrelenting. Haymitch becomes a tragic figure in his own right, and even though his family and love interest are hastily set up in the first few chapters, his inner monologue and motivations are strong enough that you still feel invested in his story, and his losses.
One place where “Sunrise on the Reaping” falls short, however, is pacing. Nearly half the book is spent on the build up to the Games, which, in my opinion, is by far the least interesting part of the story. If you’ve read the rest of the “Hunger Games” saga, you already know that the Capitol is evil, you know that the Hunger Games are sadistic, you know the Career tributes are jerks. The big “Newcomer” alliance the book hypes up falls apart almost immediately, and a lot of the exposition and character work could have been done in half the time. As a result, the events of the Games (which are critical to Collins’ overall point about propaganda and manipulation of facts), and particularly the aftermath of the Games, are incredibly rushed. The final 30 pages, which follow Haymitch after the Games in District 12, along with the epilogue set after the events of “Mockingjay,” are phenomenal, but I wanted a lot more.
Likewise, I found Haymitch’s love interest, Lenore Dove, to be quite underdeveloped. It felt as though Collins leaned too heavily on her connection to Lucy Gray from “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (both characters are Coveys). Lenore Dove’s personality feels more like “generic Covey rebel” than anything else, and while Haymitch’s love for her feels real, I didn’t feel invested in her as a character at all. It doesn’t help that Lenore Dove is just a deeply annoying name. I know it’s a silly criticism, but reading “Lenore Dove” over and over again actually started getting on my nerves.
Because Lenore’s name is derived from the Edgar Allen Poe poem “The Raven,” Collins integrates that poem throughout the book, particularly at the end. However, incorporating large passages of “The Raven” interspersed with Haymitch’s depressive spiral felt a bit like a waste of page space. I got the point the first few times, and as it continued, I started to get a little annoyed. As previously mentioned, I wanted to learn more about Haymitch between his Games and the events of “The Hunger Games,” and I felt as though Collins rushed through that sequence a bit.
Overall, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” shines with its main character, its supporting cast, and its emotional impact. However, on a plotting and pacing level, it leaves some things to be desired. It slots in very nicely with the other “Hunger Games” books, explaining certain events and filling in some plot holes. Collins has created a cohesive narrative with all the District 12 victors and their ultimate take down of the Capitol. However, for me, the more “Hunger Games” books she publishes, the more she undermines the original horror of child murder for entertainment and profit. In my opinion, this is a good place to end the saga. We have the stories of District 12’s victors and of Panem as a whole. And now, I think, it is time to let the story rest.
