Sunrise on the Reaping
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Description
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.
Reviewed on 5th April 2025
The Hunger Games are back. This time it’s 24 years before the original book, as we meet a teenager called Haymitch, his friends and family, just in time for the fiftieth annual games, in which the 12 districts are punished for whatever rebellion against power happened half a century earlier.
It’s exactly what I think I wanted from a new Hunger Games story. It has all the classic elements, and yet doesn’t feel like a rehash. We get to see some of how the original characters got to be the way they are (quite brutally), and also grow the world building.
I particularly liked how Collins has slipped in some references that fit the 2020s into her world’s past as well, regrounding this as our future, not a random dystopian world.
I’m not sure quite what the message is that Collins wants to put across - I’m happy to have experienced it as a story - but I suspect it’s about resistance to oppression, and not giving up in the face of overwhelming odds.
I feel that it rounds the series out well, adding to the lore without taking anything away. I’m really impressed by how Collins slipped this, and the previous prequel, into her world and has built it out into something complex and totally believable.
