“Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping, and she is the most precious thing I’ve ever known.”
I am absolutely speechless. I had the highest of hopes for Haymitch’s story and this book surpassed them all. This truly feels like a book for the fans who read and breathed and lived The Hunger Games in the early 2010s and still do today. So many Easter eggs, so many callbacks, so many nods to things you may have wondered about throughout all the years and especially with the release of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Have you ever pondered where a certain iconic phrase our Girl on Fire says originated from? Did your mind ever get stuck on how people in the Capitol watched the Hunger Games live and still didn’t notice everything that was going on to mock them? How Plutarch became the driving force of so much that happened in Mockingjay? Have you ever wondered how the characters who became Katniss’s allies were even connected to Haymitch in the first place?
Well, Sunrise on the Reaping invites readers to find out all that and so much more.
The amount of times my eyes widened while reading this book is ridiculous. From meeting characters for the first time that I had already analysed to hell and back to realising just how much the Games had changed since Snow’s “brilliant” ideas to make them more entertaining for viewers in the past, this book truly is not for the faint of heart.
Also, if you think you’re prepared for Haymitch’s story, then honey, you’ve got a big storm coming. We all wanted to know how Haymitch became who he is and well, all I can tell you without spoiling too much is that you are not going to be disappointed. So many things make sense in hindsight and all in all, it’s a wonder Haymitch wasn’t “worse” when Katniss got him as a mentor in her own Games.
In true fashion, we spend a lot more time with Haymitch and company before the Games than in the arena. From the truly unjust way Haymitch becomes the tribute to finding allies, plotting coups and making enemies, saying goodbye to his loved ones, so much happens before Haymitch ever steps a foot into the arena. But then, it isn’t all about the Games, is it?
It’s about the way the Capitol manages to subvert the narrative, how Snow lands on top, no matter what. How no matter what you do—succumbing to the rules, becoming a Career and murderer for sport or a protector of those weakest in the arena only to watch them all fall for simply being allied to you – there is no true winner of the Games, at least none who goes into the arena. There never was.
While I could write an entire thesis about the aftermath of Haymitch’s game, his one true love Lenore Dove and how the book shows the Capitol and Snow at their most vicious, this is perhaps what struck me the most throughout the entirety of the story. We all know that Collins is a master with words, but reading Sunrise on the Reaping feels like the hopelessness, the despair, the unspeakable injustice has been cranked up to an even higher level than we’ve seen before.
Every piece of resistance, every act of defiance is met with anything from a slap to the face to a sly smile and the bittersweet promise of retribution in a way you could never imagine – all while flashing a sickly sweet smile at you. Every attempt to make the Capitol pay, to make them look like the goddamn fools that they are, is spun into a tale that makes it clear to the readers and to Haymitch: Snow lands on top. And the Capitol will not fall. If you can’t connect that to today’s political climate on your own, well…
And yet. And yet. There is despair, there is hopelessness, there is failure and loss at every turn and still, Haymitch finds another way to make his own statement: Snow may land on top, but even snow eventually melts. And Haymitch has nothing more to lose—he makes sure of that.
It’s eerily reminiscent of what commonality Katniss and Haymitch have always recognised in each other: The undying embers of resilience and resistance, that nagging feeling that there is still a role for them to play, a goal to fulfill, a way to make the Capitol and Snow pay, in whatever manner they can. Not so much because they want better for themselves, but because they cannot stand the ones they love(d) to have to live with this fate.
In the face of unspeakable loss, Haymitch holds on, not for himself, but to uphold a promise, to do everything in his power, even if it is not enough on his own, to stop the wheel from turning on yet another reaping. And that inner strength, that reluctance to give up out of spite, out of solidarity, out of loyalty, is what makes his story so powerful and unputdownable.
While I won’t spoil the epilogue, I will say that I thought I was already at the limit of how devastated by Haymitch’s harrowing story I could be, thinking “okay, this is it. We know how this ended. We will have to wait because Katniss is just on the horizon. This story will not end well – yet. We know this,” only to be proven wrong.
Though the epilogue is certainly not without hope, Suzanne Collins still managed to break me in a whole new way in less than five pages by giving us one more glimpse at Haymitch’s years after the Games. It felt like the perfect send-off, an immaculate catharsis to a story that, in its own way, has no happy ending, only the unshakeable truth that humanity will survive even the darkest of times as long as there is hope…and thus is one ending we won’t ever forget.
A love letter to the fans of the Hunger Games series and more relevant than ever before, Haymitch’s devastating story offers clues and insights into the world of Panem and shocks you to its core, yet also reminds you of the innate ability of humans to never give up hope and to keep fighting even when all is lost—which makes Sunrise on the Reaping a tale that readers are sure to love like all-fire, always and forever.
Sunrise on the Reaping is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
Will you be picking up Sunrise on the Reaping? Have you read it already? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
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 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.
