Published: March 18, 2025
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Series: The Hunger Games #0.5
Genre: Dystopia, Young Adult
Pages: 387 (Hardcover)
My Rating: 4 Stars
Synopsis:
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.
I had zero interest in reading the last Hunger Game prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but I caved after seeing so much love for Sunrise on the Reaping. There was also a great deal of appeal in seeing how Haymitch became the sole surviving victor in District 12, so I picked up the audiobook. I can certainly see the appeal, though this fell short of becoming a new favorite and, for me at least, didn’t compete with the original trilogy.
As mentioned, this follows Haymitch Abernathy, the curmudgeonly drunk that mentors Peeta and Katniss in The Hunger Games, during the second quarter quell. The 50th Hunger Games is unique in that twice as many children are reaped from the districts to stave the Capitol’s hunger for death. Haymitch turns 16 on the day of the Reaping (July 4) and he’s determined to spend his birthday with his lady love, Lenore Dove, and hope his name doesn’t get pulled in the Reaping. As we all know, he does get selected though it’s not in the way you might expect and he and three other teens – Louella, Maysilee, and Wyatt – from District 12 are sent to the Capitol. We all know that only one child can emerge victorious, so it’s inevitable that they will see their friends die and Haymitch accepts what he feels is his inevitable death and strives to somehow make the Capitol pay.
I see so many readers championing this book and I’m so glad that it struck a chord with people in the way that the original three books did for me so many years ago! I’m not sure if I’m just old and jaded (lol), but this book didn’t quite have the same emotional impact that some of the heartbreaking moments in the original trilogy did. Yes, there were sad, terrifying, and even somewhat hopeful moments, but none of them gave me quite the gut punch that I might have hoped for. Haymitch’s struggle against the Capitol was admirable and it was sad to see him broken on so many occasions, whether by the death of his fellow tributes or otherwise. For me the most breaking moments were at the very end, when he returns to his home only to realise that Snow would never let him have happiness after Haymitch openly defied him. It’s easy to see why Haymitch didn’t join with those secretly fighting against the Capitol after he was so profoundly broken.
Overall, this was a solid installment in the world of Panem and a respectable prequel that told a story I was long curious about. I liked seeing some of the characters that would be reaped in the third quarter quell that we read about in Catching Fire – Beetee, Wiress, Mags. Beetee’s story was terribly crushing. For a book of modest length, Suzanne Collins managed to pack in a wonderful amount of details about the tributes from District 12 and several of the other districts to make the reader care about them and the games arena was creatively done. I am really looking forward to the movie adaptation of Sunrise on the Reaping, which is supposed to be released sometime in 2026.
Powder & Page 
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