Warning: This review contains spoilers for \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d and other \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d novels.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSunrise on the Reaping,\u201d released March 18, sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week. But despite the sales boom, Suzanne Collins\u2019s<\/a> latest prequel centers on Haymitch Abernathy, a side-character beloved in \u201cThe Hunger Games<\/a>\u201d universe for his wit, charisma and tragic backstory – a backstory the prequel retells inelegantly and repetitively. While a successful dystopian prequel can enhance a series by incorporating new plot details, maintaining the writing quality of the author\u2019s previous work, avoiding excessive fan-service and finding fresh ways to explore the series\u2019s themes, \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d fails to add anything of value to Collins\u2019 elaborately crafted world of Panem. The novel\u2019s abundant sales exemplify how writing quality ceases to matter when a series becomes popular enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Collins\u2019 original trilogy tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, a teenage tribute from a District subjugated by an oppressive Capitol that forces her to participate in a televised fight to the death against other children, called the Hunger Games. Haymitch Abernathy, a drunk, sarcastic former Hunger Games victor charged with guiding Katniss through preparation for the Games, has emerged as one of the series\u2019s fan-favorite<\/a> characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSunrise on The Reaping\u201d follows Haymitch during his own adolescence after he becomes a tribute in the Hunger Games. Resourceful and protective, he only hopes to help his fellow tributes from District 12, not return home in victory. But he\u2019s soon swept up in a resistance plot that aims to physically destroy the Hunger Games arena. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After exploring the force-field around the arena, hoping to exploit it as an act of resistance against the Capitol, Haymitch ends up winning the Games when the last remaining competitor attacks him with an axe that accidentally ricochets off the force-field, killing the competitor and rendering him the victor. However, he pays a steep price for his rebellious activity. Upon Haymitch\u2019s victory, the tyrannical Capitol\u2019s President Snow murders all of Haymitch\u2019s family and loved ones, leaving him to descend into alcoholism until Katniss Everdeen arrives and the events of the main trilogy begin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The story might have fascinated readers, had Collins not already told it – she previously revealed all of these details about Haymitch\u2019s history in the second and third books of the original \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d trilogy. The plot\u2019s premature disclosure might not have made for an intolerable read if executed with fluidity and originality. However, \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d lacks precision and freshness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Haymitch\u2019s signature irreverence, which in the original \u201cHunger Games\u201d has a magnetic indelicacy, often slides into informality. Collins tries to make him sound like a prototypical teenage boy with modern slang that feels out of place, pulling the reader out of the setting. In contrast to this almost juvenile quality of Haymitch\u2019s inner monologue, Collins intersperses the second half of the novel with long passages from Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Raven.\u201d The frequent interruptions of poetry, while at first haunting, eventually make the novel\u2019s final chapters tedious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly overdone, the novel\u2019s fan-service becomes convoluted and unrealistic as Collins excessively links the series\u2019s various characters familially or romantically. While one can understand the impulse to tap into the nostalgia and tie beloved characters together, such cross-over relationships feel unnatural when taken too far, perhaps indicating Collins cannot move past the stories of her old characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike in her other prequel, \u201cThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,\u201d Collins does not add new elements to \u201cSunrise on the Reaping.\u201d She reuses the same tropes of her previous books: the strong protagonist taking the younger, innocent tribute under his wing, only for the child to die, the plucky, unlikely Hunger Games victor devoted to his family and the daring resistance plan doomed to end in tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, while the novel’s themes of totalitarianism, the horror of violence toward children and class struggle have no new insights compared to the other \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d books, \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d nevertheless provides discerning political commentary. The book succeeds relatively as a standalone dystopian novel that reflects the ills of modern society in an accessible format. Unfortunately, the vast majority of its readers have read the previous \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d novels and know Collins can do better. As a prequel to one of the greatest young adult series<\/a> of the 21st century, \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d flounders. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Warning: This review contains spoilers for \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d and other \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d novels.\u00a0 \u201cSunrise on the Reaping,\u201d released March 18, sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week. But despite the sales boom, Suzanne Collins\u2019s latest prequel centers on Haymitch Abernathy, a side-character beloved in \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d universe for his wit, charisma and tragic backstory – a backstory the prequel retells inelegantly and repetitively. While a successful dystopian prequel can<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":11534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,318,321,638],"tags":[],"coauthors":[573],"class_list":["post-11531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-news","category-opinion","category-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-16-at-7.23.32-PM-e1744845849579.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11533,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531\/revisions\/11533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11531"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}