Suzanne Collins has done it again with her fifth Hunger Games book, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” debuting with more than one and a half million copies sold in just the first week of sales. I ran to the bookstore the day before it was released, March 18, to put a copy aside to make sure I could get my hands on it. I visited many different bookstores the next day to find that almost every copy was sold out. Fans were raving across the internet, driving sales.
“Sunrise on the Reaping” takes place on the 50th Hunger Games reaping, which is the ceremony where they select tributes to fight for their lives in a contest the government created called The Hunger Games. The book tells the story of Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games experience when he was younger. (Haymitch was introduced in the first book as a previous winner of the contest.)
The new book opens with a heartwarming, emotional scene. It takes place on the reaping day, which also happens to be Haymitch’s birthday. Since this book is about Haymitch’s experience as a tribute, I knew starting the story with him celebrating his birthday would only make the read more depressing, anticipating the disaster that would soon follow.
The book takes a significant emotional turn when the reaping begins. Haymitch was not initially selected as a tribute. The boy who was originally chosen tries to escape the reaping and is executed, leaving one spot open. Haymitch gets selected, and the attention turns toward him.
In the Hunger Games franchise, you can never get too attached to relationships or friendships because of how quickly things change. The game preparation begins, and Haymitch and the other tributes are taken to the Capitol, which is the city full of higher status citizens who control all of the districts, to prepare and train for the games. He creates friendships and alliances with new characters like Maysille Donner and Wyatt Callow, tributes from District 12. I loved being introduced to all these new characters, but falling in love with new characters also carries a hint of sadness when remembering how only one tribute can win the games.
Halfway through the book, the games begin, and I refused to put down the book. Reading these books is a high anxiety exercise, as virtually every page features a drastic change in events.
The anxiety stuck with me through the last few pages of the story, and the end of the book had me in tears. Spoiler alert: It was a terribly emotional ending that left me with a heavy heart for the characters. Despite this tragic conclusion, it still happened to be one of my favorite books to come out recently.
“Sunrise On The Reaping” truly is one of the best books Collins has written. Everything she writes is amazing, but this book specifically made me feel all the emotions. She has a brilliant way of connecting events to real-life issues, but still making it feel like its own world. Collins uses her writing to demonstrate the consequences of abusing power and normalizing societal inequalities. Her writing encourages readers to advocate for change and fight against injustices, as her heroine of the previous Hunger Games books, Katniss Everdeen, does.
The book was far more than fiction, it was impactful, inspiring, and emotional. I will need a good month until I can move on and pick up a new book.
