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Sunrise on the Book Release

Posted 05/02/2025 by Simone DiFalco

Readers around the world are enjoying the new Hunger Games book. photo by Amy Ngo

A spoiler free review of Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins.

17 years after the bestselling book The Hunger Games was released, the author, Suzanne Collins, is still not done. The series, loved by teens and adults alike, consists of three books and a prequel–The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. All four movies were also made into blockbuster hits. However, fans were still clamoring for more stories to be told. After over 100 million copies sold, Collins decided to continue the book franchise, and on June 6, 2024, a new book was announced. It was to tell the story that audiences had been asking for since the first book was released in 2008. The story that would once and for all tie together the history and give a backstory to one of the most beloved characters of the series. By the first week, the book tripled the sales of Mockingjay and doubled that of The Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes.

In the first book, we meet our main character Katniss, a ferocious girl fighting to keep her family from starvation in the poorest district of Panem (formerly known as the United States). However, her life is turned upside down when her sister’s name is chosen for a deadly battle to the death and Katniss volunteers as tribute to take her place. With her, a sweet-spoken baker’s boy, a sarcastic drunkard, and a frilly lunatic from the heart of the capitol. The series only gets better as it progresses into a full-fledged revolution, but Sunrise on the Reaping follows the story of that sarcastic drunkard back to when he was only a boy. 

Readers of the original series will remember Haymitch Abernathy, and the fact that he himself was reaped and sent into the games as a 16-year-old. He ended up surviving and winning the games, and the new novel tells the story of how that unfolded. While the story might seem certain since we already know how it ends, Collins keeps the story twisting at every available point. Even the first sentence of the book is a surprise, one that will haunt the original readers upon seeing it. Indeed, the book not only shocks and satisfies the reader’s curiosity, but it seems to pull at your heartstrings until they are sore, and the aching in your chest is so bad you wonder why you even bothered to pick it up. 

How does Collins do this? By building up the stakes and then making the reader lose everything. In the first hundred pages, we are introduced to many familiar names, and some not so familiar faces. Maysilee Donner, a friend of Katniss’s mother and original owner of the famous Mockingjay pin; Burdock Everdeen, a friend of Haymitch’s who we assume to be Katniss’s own father; and many more names who we do not recognize, but are sure to be ingrained upon your memory long after reading it. Collins makes us love these characters, and makes them meaningful to Haymitch. Collins is surely a master at creating characters, but as the readers know, there must only be one victor. 

Sunrise on the Reaping, which some might call a money grab as it was released 15 years after the trilogy ended and five years after the previous prequel, feels quite the opposite. It was written for the fans, with the fans in mind. Readers will be shocked by how many familiar faces pop up, and how much depth it gives to characters we had previously known very little about. Many people are calling it the missing puzzle piece, but I am calling it a work of art. Collins not only took the time to listen to what the readers wanted and make something better than their most wild imaginations while still fitting seamlessly into the deep wells of canon content. Additionally she also took the time to write at least ten songs for the book, five of them being new songs for the book, and one of them being a full poem by Edgar Allen Poe. While some readers might find these brief interruptions of songs jarring, others will love the way they are able to interpret the melody of these new songs and marvel at the lyrical genius. 

After 17 years, this novel is not only a gem of hope for the future of more Hunger Games books about our other beloved and unsung heroes of the original series, but also a warning. It seems that Collins knows exactly when to publish, and when her readers need a wake up call. The entire point of the Hunger Games is to warn people of the dangers of enjoying the game at the cost of the players. We continue to go to war despite the lives that it costs. We continue to make consumer goods despite the environmental costs. And we continue to read the books and enjoy them as the capitol loves the games despite the warnings that come with them. Many people do not understand these warnings and anti-dictatorships messages that Collins places throughout. We are made to feel for the people suffering in the poorest districts, yet continue to do nothing for those who suffer in the real world. We are made to pity the children in the games and hate the president who put them there, and yet do nothing to stop dictatorships around the world. These books are a warning, and they are timed perfectly for the people who need to listen to them most. In 2008, the housing market crashed and she released the original Hunger Games trilogy; in 2020 the world fell into a global pandemic and recession and she released the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes; and now in 2025 protests are once again held to protect the freedoms of the country. 

Sunrise on the Reaping is not just a money grab, it’s not just a book to snatch up off of the shelves and post about on social media, it is not just a bread crumb left by Collins for the fandom to continue following her lead. But it is a global phenomenon that has taken readers by surprise, and has claimed the charts because it deserves it. People will continue to rave about the book for as long as they are able or until the sun rises on another Hunger Games book release.