Sunrise on the Reaping Book Review

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today, I am back with another book review. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2025. I love the Hunger Games universe. I loved Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but Haymitch's games?! I'm all in. So, let's get into it!

*The following content contains some spoilers.

In Sunrise on the Reaping, we are focusing in on the 50th Hunger Games. This year, twice as many tributes are to be reaped for the games. Haymitch Abernathy is forced into the games, leaving behind his family and love of this life. When he's set up to fail, a spark ignites in Haymitch that maybe he wants to fight back against the Capitol.

For starters, I can't wait for the movie. The Hunger Games movie franchise is some of the best book adaptations ever done. I know that's a bold statement, but I think its well deserved.

My younger, middle school self is screaming at the fact that after all these years, we finally get to see Haymitch's story. And let me tell you, it was just as heartbreaking as we all thought.

Now, I didn't read Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but I did see the movie. Honestly, that gave me enough information to be able to pickup on the connections to that book, the Lucy Gray connections, etc. I didn't feel lost at all. I also really liked how much connection there was to the original trilogy. We see staple characters like Wiress and Mags. I don't think the connections were overdone. If anything it made reading the book more exciting.

The amount of connections to previous books and just why some things were they way there were in the original trilogy now make so much more sense. Like how Katniss was just a luckier version of Haymitch. Snow couldn't scrub the heartfelt story of her sister out because everyone saw her volunteer. Snow couldn't get rid of her love interest because Peeta was in the games with her. Everything we saw Haymitch lose, Snow couldn't take from Katniss. The writing and the way everything is so well thought out, as a avid reader and someone who dabbles in writing, I absolutely love this series.

There is a lot of talk on the internet about if there will be another Hunger Games book. I think there will be. I think poetically it makes sense to have a prequel trilogy to the original trilogy. While just release two? It feels unfinished to me still. That then begs the question, what could the next book be about?

I think there's something to be said about Finnick's games and character. He won the 65th Hunger Games and was the youngest tribute to ever do so. We know Snow then paraded and sold him to people of the Capitol. There has to be more to the story there, like why? In Sunrise on the Reaping, we see how Haymitch was treated after he won the games. He was put in a cage! We no already that no one ever really wins the games, but at what point is there physical violence/harm done to the victors?

We know from Catching Fire that Finnick is part of the revolution, maybe his connection to the uprising goes back further than we believe like Plutarch. I think the story could be done in a similar fashion to the last two books. It's far enough from the 50th Hunger Games that any overlapping characters (Snow) could be casted with different actors. I think there's something to be said for Finnick, but who really knows besides Suzanne Collins. I think the additions to this series have been well thought out.

Overall, I thought the chapters were really long, and I thought the ending of Haymitch winning and onward was rushed. It felt much faster than the rest of the book. I still give this 5/5 stars and highly recommend!

Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post. As always, thank you for reading :)