Review: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games #0.5) by Suzanne Collins

   

Print Length: 382 pages

Publisher: Scholastic Press (March 18, 2025)

From Goodreads.com: 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.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Where do I even begin? There were things I enjoyed about this novel, and things that I either didn't enjoy, or that I wish would have been done better. 

What I liked - unlike some others who seem to feel as though the "name-dropping" of characters we easily recognized from the original series were done to distract us with nostalgia, I actually liked the way they were used. To be fair, it has been a very long time since I've read the original series. 

I liked the way the Covey were also woven into this story, although it seemed a little odd to me that no one mentioned Lucy Gray, (not even Leonore Dove who obviously knew about her (if she wasn't in fact related to her somehow). I liked seeing a younger Effie Trinket and how she seemed kind to the tributes (even if she obviously believed whole-heartedly in the capital propaganda, she still for her sisters sake was not going to let them go on stage without a proper costume).  

I also liked the classic feel to the arena. It felt very much like being back in the 74th Hunger Games arena, and Haymitch reminded me (as I'm sure was intended) of Katniss (especially with climbing trees to sleep). I was a little surprised that it took him as long as it did to understand the importance of the things in his pack, considering he had been warned by his mentors that such things typically gave away important clues to the conditions of the arena. It seemed obvious to me that certain things he found inside wouldn't have been included if they had been so easily accessible inside the arena. 

Things I didn't like and/or wish had been done better? 

Haymitch. I have been a fan of this character since his very first introduction in The Hunger Games. I knew that he had been a victor, I even knew how he had won his games. But it was what happened after that I was most interested in. Sadly, we only got the barest of glimpses of that man which was a shame. Considering how slow the build-up was to actually get into the arena, and then how fast the games went by (which I didn't necessarily have a problem with as like I already pointed out we all already knew at least how they ended), there is no reason why the last third of the book was dedicated more to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" than it was to Haymitch. And this is being said by a person who will openly declare that The Raven is their absolute favorite Poe story. I get that it was Lenore Dove's "song", but for crying out loud I don't care about her. Show me Haymitch the first time he has to mentor kids from 12. Show me the intervening years and the slow descent into the man we first meet on the day of Katniss' reaping. Show him and Effie as the years go by, both of them knowing what it means to have two new tributes. As it was, he knew his own odds of winning the games were slim to none, I would have at least liked to see him try and actually mentor some tributes to follow in his footsteps (and how their deaths impacted him), before he gave up. 

The other tributes. Yeah, I know with 48 of them, there is no way we could have gotten to know all of them, and for the most part I expected them to be cardboard cut-out characters. You know the kind; ones you see once in awhile in the background or you hear about something they have done, but you don't know anything about them. But I felt like the majority of the characters were like that. I wanted to know more about the tributes that we got to see the most of. I wanted more about Maysilee, why did she decide to try and befriend the other tributes, working on their tokens instead of her training? Was she in on the plan somehow? 

And speaking of the plan, I understand that two of the characters later go on to help with the rebellion, but it didn't make sense to me why they were both so willingly open to discuss said plan with Haymitch without knowing anything about him. Sure one of them knew what actually happened on reaping day, but the other didn't and it just didn't make sense to me why they would go to the lengths they did, even "for the poster". Who was to say Haymitch wouldn't turn them in to earn favor with the capitol in order to save his family? 

And that brings me to my final character issue. President Snow himself. Everything we have seen of him up until this point has shown how cunning he is. And how he acts subtly maneuvering things (and people) behind the scene like a malevolent puppet master. And yet, here he is, willingly eating poisoned food for no apparent reason, basically admitting to knowing more about the Covey people than a man in his position should have, and openly telling Haymitch what was going to happen to him in the arena (even if THAT turned out to be an idle threat it seems). Where was the man who knew how to bend people to his will? Why, in the arena, was Haymitch never attacked by the mutts that seemed to be programed for individual tributes? 

If I had to pick a character for another prequel, honestly, I would be more interested in seeing more of President Snow. Yes, I know that's a very un-popular opinion, but I feel like what we saw in TBoSaS only scratched the surface. I want to see his time in the University studying under Professor Gaul. I want to see his rise to power as President. There has to be more to his hatred than just what happened between him and Lucy Gray. 

All of that being said, I feel as though this was a solid addition (although it needed work), and I would read more.