Review: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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.

• Title: Sunrise on the Reaping
• Author:  Suzanne Collins
• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication Date: March 18th, 2025
• Genre: Dystopia 
• Targeted Age Range: YA
• Content Warnings: death of a parent, physical violence, death and murder (graphic, on page), gore, blood, violence, mentions of suicide, poison
• Rating: ★★★★★

Please note, the review is full of spoilers for Sunrise on the Reaping, so if you haven’t read it and don’t want to get spoiled, click out of this one, finish the book and then come back! Okay, now, let’s get into the review! 

Suzanne Collins and I need to talk, because I’m gonna need her to pay the therapy bills that I will have after reading Sunrise on the Reaping because this book completely wrecked me. 

When I say that I believe Suzanne Collins is a genius I am truly saying that with my entire chest. Suzanne Collins is a genius. Absolutely no one is doing it on her level. She is in a caliber of her own. The way her mind works is fascinating and her writing is just beyond. Among many things that I absolutely love about this series, one of the things that has really stuck out to me now that we’ve gotten to read books from the POVs of Katniss, Snow and Haymitch, is that every book as such a different tone and voice to it based on our narrator, but the writing is distinctly Suzanne. 

Something that Collins mentions in the book Q&A is that at the start of the book, Haymitch is actually pretty happy with his life. Yes, he’s had hardships, but he has a loving and present mother, a younger brother that he adores, he’s working with Hattie to make white liquor and he’s got his love, Lenore Dove. In contrast to the start of The Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes where Katniss and Snow have lost both of their parents (yes, Katniss’ mother is there physically but as we know she wasn’t there emotionally or mentally for a long time), and their outlook on life is much darker than Haymitch’s is at the start of the book, so that makes his story a little more heartbreaking because you really see his loss of optimism as the story goes on. I’m sure this was intentional because I don’t think Suzanne Collins does anything by accident, but the parallels and comparisons between Haymitch, Peeta and Katniss throughout the book is really interesting. 

At the start of the book Haymitch’s outlook and general persona is much closer to Peeta’s at the start of the series. His love for Lenore Dove and the way that all he wanted was to have a life with her, and keep her safe, that purity of their love reminded me so much of Peeta’s feelings for Katniss. I feel that the two of them start their respective journeys in very similar places, and then once Haymitch is in the games and is really experiencing this torture at the hands of Snow and the Capitol that his shell hardens and we start to meet the version of him that is much more similar to Katniss and I think it’s really interesting to watch that play out and see who Haymitch was before the games. I also think that this really puts his relationships with Katniss and Peeta into perspective. How much of himself did he see in both of them when he really first met them after the Reaping? What was that moment like where Haymitch and Peeta were getting ready for Peeta’s interview and he talked about how he’s always loved Katniss? Did it make Haymitch think of Lenore Dove? What was Haymitch’s reaction to seeing Katniss with Maysliee’s Mockingjay pin? I have SO MANY QUESTIONS!

Personally, in a lot of ways I actually found this to be the hardest of the series for me to read. Obviously, with the original trilogy, we’re meeting all of these characters for the first time and we’re building our connection to them as the story goes on. With The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the only character we already know is Snow and we hate him, so we build a bond with Lucy Gray during the story. With Sunrise, we already have a very strong bond to Haymitch and those feelings are at the forefront of our minds. We’re already emotionally invested, but then we get appearances by Beetee, Wiress, Mags (did I cry when Mags shows up the first time? Yes), and Effie; all characters that we know and love and for some of them, we know that come the end of the series, they don’t survive. I saw some people say that the edition of these characters that we know from the original trilogy felt a bit like fan service, but for me it didn’t feel that way at all. I think adding in these characters adds so much to the original trilogy and it makes sense. I was especially excited about the addition of Effie and getting to see a younger version of her. I loved seeing more of her connection to Haymitch and how she was looking out for him from the start, just like she did for Katniss and Peeta.

I loved so many of the new characters we met as well. Ampert has my entire heart; he was the sweetest boy (also the way that he wanted to create an alliance of the “other” districts to combat the careers mirrored the alliance in Catching Fire was so good, it was like a little piece of him lived on). I adored him and his death really broke me. I was CRYING. I think that Maysilee Donner is actually one of my favorite characters in the entire series now. Firstly, she truly took no shit from anyone and I loved that about her. The way that she roasted not only the Capitol but Drusilla (she was pure evil) every opportunity that she had was amazing, and I loved what Suzanne Collins said about her in the Q&A and how she is driven by rage and in 12 that manifests as meanness. She’s angry about the world she’s born into and how it limits and threatens her at every turn and she sees the injustice and she fights it in the only way she knows how. The development of Maysilee throughout the book was so beautiful; I loved the scene during training with Ampert where he said “I wish you were my sister” and she said “I’ll be your sister” and how she and Haymitch then developed the same kind of bond. Her death, even though I knew it was coming (though I did forget the how and that was a little traumatizing for me), absolutely broke me, especially because we know how much her death broke Haymitch.

To me, Sunrise is such a hugely emotional read, even before we get into the games and the true horrors of the Capitol. I mean, I was crying by page 5, my emotions were so easy and available all throughout reading and then Suzanne was like “Hey, so guess what? Haymitch and Katniss’ dad were actually best friends. He knew Katniss’ mom and she was best friends with the Donner sisters. Oh! And Katniss’ dad saved Peeta’s dad at the reaping. Enjoy!” all before the second chapter and I was like “Ma’am???” 

As always with The Hunger Games series, there are so many political statements in Sunrise on the Reaping that really punch you in the gut. There are many very strong political statements throughout the book, but there were a few that really hit me throughout this book. First, is the Reaping being on the 4th of July. The 4th of July being the day that the United States (which is what the Districts were before the Dark Days) celebrated freedom and independence to then become the day that the Capitol forces 2 kids (or in the case of the 50th Quarter Quell, 4 kids) from each district are sent to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol elite is a brilliant statement to make, and the way this is mirroring how current political leaders are trying to strip us away of basic human rights is terrifying. 

The other very clear political statement that really got to me was when they had the Victor’s Ceremony at Haymitch had to watch the “highlights” from the Games and was commentating on how everything was edited and manipulated to tell a story that the Capitol wanted to tell, but didn’t match up with what actually took place in the arena, and how it didn’t matter that what is shown isn’t what actually happened because the only people still alive that knew the truth were Haymitch and the Gamemakers and who would the Capitol believe more? It’s a great commentary on how history is not always told in a way that is correct or truthful to actual events, but instead, is told by the victors and usually done so to paint them in a positive light regardless of what actually happened. 

I keep thinking about how certain people like to say things like “keep politics out of literature” or “reading isn’t political” when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Art of any kind — literature, films, music, etc. — reflect the political climate and always have political undertones to them. Some may be more subtle than others, and I’m always glad that Suzanne Collins is not shy about her political commentary, especially right now. She even touched on the privilege that reading is with the Heavensbee’s giant library being intact, to then Snow mentioning how during the war his family lost all of their books, to then mentioning that really no one in District 12 reads because they don’t have access to books. I was so glad that this was included, especially with all the discourse around books and politics and book bans. 

Truly, every time I think I can’t hate Snow more, he somehow gets worse. Louella’s body double? That was absolutely sick. I actually had to put the book down when that happened and just say “How can you be so twisted?” It’s just astonishing. Making Beetee mentor his own son? Absolutely demonic. Personally, I don’t think his death was bad enough, that man was the literal devil. Also, bro, get over what happened with Lucy Gray, you literally brought that upon yourself and I hope that every single time you heard or saw anything about District 12 or the Mockingjay she haunted your dreams and tortured you in your sleep. 

So many aspects of the original trilogy, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes are mirrored in this book and it’s truly brilliant. The way that Snow perpetuated the cycles of torment, abuse, murder and death on these children over and over and over again for 65 years was so incredibly sick and I felt like that was really emphasized in this book, or at least it was for me. Snow burning Haymitch’s house with his mother and brother inside to then bomb all of District 12 and Peeta’s family dying in their bakery, their home, in Mockingjay. Haymitch taking Louella’s body to Snow’s mansion during the chariot scene, laying her body there, and taking a step back to say, “Look at what you did. You did this. You killed her” to Peeta then painting a portrait of Rue, dead in the flowers, during his time with the gamemakers to hold them accountable for her death. Snow killing Lenore Dove with poisoned gummies, to Katniss and Peeta threatening to both die with the poisoned berries. Snow brainwashing and torturing that poor girl from District 11 to be a body double for Louella to then hijacking and brainwashing Peeta. Every time something new come up I was just left with my jaw open because history will always repeat itself if we don’t learn from it the first time, and since Snow never had to face any consequences for his actions, he just kept repeating these horrible crimes until the rebels had enough strength and momentum behind them to fight back. 

I really think that Sunrise has been a piece of The Hunger Games puzzle that we’ve been missing. The world that Suzanne Collins created is so rich and beautiful and heartbreaking and there’s so much that we don’t know and could still learn but I think Sunrise really brings everything into perspective. While we always knew that the revolution had been in motion long before Katniss was even born, reading about it in Sunrise was really powerful to me. This is such a good example of how change and revolution doesn’t happen overnight. It’s hundreds of thousands of people working toward it every day for years, and progress gets made slowly but surely and then all the pieces fall into place and change happens. Reading about Beetee, Wiress, Mags, Plutarch and Haymitch fighting the Capitol during the 50th games was so fascinating, and then seeing how much of what they did and what they learned then came into play during the 75th games is really mind-blowing. The revolution had been brewing for years, but they couldn’t spark the flame, then Katniss and Peeta came along and finally, they had the missing pieces that they needed, and I’m so glad that Haymitch and Beetee especially were able to live long enough to see all of their hard work come to fruition. Also the epilogue? Ugly tears EVERYWHERE. I took a photo of myself after finishing the book to share with my friends and I truly was just ugly sobbing everywhere. 

If you made it this far, honestly thank you. I know that this review is long and a little rambly, and truthfully, I’m not sure how much of it makes actual sense but I just have so many thoughts. I even left stuff out because if I commented on every little thought and parallel this post would truly never end. Everything about this series is so rich and detailed; it’s so alive and it really speaks to Suzanne Collins’ skill as a writer to evoke so many emotions in her readers and it shows in the longevity that this series has had and how we all want to continually dive into this world because her work is so compelling. I feel so lucky to be alive at the same time as her and get to read her work because it’s truly so masterful.

Suzanne Collins doesn’t write a book unless she has something to say and she had a lot to say in this one. I sincerely hope she never stops having something to say, because we need stories like these. This book was absolutely incredible; I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished it and I can’t wait to reread it and really dissect and analyze the text. As always with the Hunger Games series, Sunrise on the Reaping is a masterpiece and a book that I will hold very close to my heart. 

Links for Sunrise on the Reaping: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop