Sunrise on the Reaping Book Review: We Knew Haymitch Survived. We Didn't Know the Cost.

Rating: ★★★★★

"Sunrise on the Reaping" Book Review:

Let me just say it: I was nervous about this one. Prequels to beloved series have a lousy track record, and even The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes had its skeptics. But Suzanne Collins walking back into the Hunger Games arena to give us Haymitch Abernathy's story? That's either going to be brilliant or it's going to break something sacred. It's brilliant. It might also break you, but that's a different problem.

Sunrise on the Reaping is set during the fiftieth Hunger Games—the Second Quarter Quell—which means the Capitol decided to celebrate by doubling the tribute count. Forty-eight kids instead of twenty-four. Because of course they did. The Capitol has never met a cruelty it couldn't escalate, and Collins has never shied away from making you sit with that.

Here's what makes this book so effective, and so brutal: you know Haymitch survives. You've met him. You've watched him stumble through Katniss's story drunk and damaged and barely holding it together. There's no suspense about whether he lives. The suspense is about what surviving costs him—and Collins makes you pay for that knowledge on every single page. Knowing the destination doesn't soften the journey. If anything, it makes it worse, because every relationship Haymitch forms, every alliance, every moment of genuine connection, you're sitting there thinking I know what this turns him into.

Collins remains one of the sharpest writers working when it comes to systemic violence against young people. She doesn't sensationalize it. She doesn't make it cool or exciting. She makes it feel like what it is: state-sanctioned murder dressed up as entertainment. And in 2025, with reality television still devouring people whole and political systems still grinding up the vulnerable for spectacle, these books haven't lost an ounce of relevance.

Jefferson White narrates the audiobook, and the casting is inspired. He captures young Haymitch's voice—sharp, angry, clever, not yet buried under decades of self-medication—with this raw quality that makes you forget you're listening to a performance. This is Haymitch before the bottle, and White makes that version of him feel like a completely different person while still carrying the seeds of who he'll become.

Five stars, no hesitation. The Hunger Games universe still has nightmares left to give us, and Collins delivers them without mercy.

If You Liked Sunrise on the Reaping, Try:

• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins — If you somehow haven't read the first Hunger Games prequel, young Coriolanus Snow's origin story is equally unsettling and morally complex.

• Scythe by Neal Shusterman — A world where death has been conquered, so humans appoint Scythes to maintain population control. Same DNA of examining how systems normalize killing.

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown — A brutal competition in a stratified society where survival means becoming something you hate. Haymitch would recognize the game immediately.

  
  

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From Luke Stoffel's Bookshelf

If you enjoyed this book review, check out my novel The Stardust Pirates — a YA adventure about a ragtag crew of misfits who discover that the universe is far stranger and more wonderful than they ever imagined. thestardustpirates.com

The Stardust Pirates Book 1 by Luke Stoffel