Title: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games #0.5)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic 2025
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 387
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reading Challenges:
Where I Got It: Borrowed from a friend
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..
Multiple people from co-op have read this one and passed a copy around the group. They wanted me to read it so we could discuss, so I did. I was not interested in Snow’s story, but will admit that Haymitch’s story had me intrigued. He’s such an interesting character in the original trilogy. Of course, we know where he ends up and in what state. His book really dives into his experience during the Second Quarter Quell and how it set him up to be the Haymitch that Katniss knows. Of course the story was going to tragic. No happy endings here. The beginning of the book was a little dull. And I truly never really cared about Lenore Dove at all. I just kept reading so we could get to the game and encounter the characters involved there. Once the characters arrive in the Capitol, the story really started picking up for me. I loved seeing Haymitch make connections with characters known to us (Mags, Wiress, Beetee, Effie, and Plutarch) and characters new to us but important to this story. I especially loved seeing a ton of parallels between Haymitch and Katniss’s experiences the games. My biggest quibble with the story is the amount of repeated song lyrics woven through the prose. I started skipping them at some point when I realized that we were just repeating the same things over and over. I am certainly we will have some good discussion at co-op about the book.
Next up on the TBR pile:
