Sunrise on the Reaping (A Hunger Games Novel)

Set 40 years after the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, this heart-wrenching novel from Collins centers a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy and his role in the climactic 50th Hunger Games. Though readers will know him as Katniss and Peeta’s ill-tempered, alcohol-dependent mentor during the 74th games, young Haymitch is a sweet-natured, responsible teen working hard to support his widowed mother and younger brother. In his free time, he attends to his sweetheart, Lenore Dove, a singer with a rebellious streak, who is one of the Covey, a group of formerly itinerant musicians. Then Haymitch is selected to compete in the second-ever Quarter Quell. His mother’s parting words—“Don’t let them paint their posters with your blood”—become his North Star as he balances the necessity of performing for the Games with maintaining his integrity and morality. As the Quarter Quell commences, Collins utilizes searing, precise language to vividly depict what each party—the tributes, the Capitol, and the districts at large—stands to lose and how these Games’ aftermath will come to shape the events of the original trilogy. Excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”—peppered throughout Haymitch’s first-person narration—heighten the story’s emotional resonance. It’s a brutal tale of compassion and rage, and a frank examination of propaganda and tragedy, that will satisfy longtime series fans and newcomers alike. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)

Correction: The text of this review has been updated for clarity.