Sunrise on the Reaping Review: Recontextualizing a Series 17 Years Later

Madison McMahon ‘26 / Emertainment Monthly Head Film Section Editor

Spoilers Ahead. 

On March 18, 2025, the most avid of Hunger Games fans realized they were wrong. Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest edition to The Hunger Games series, made every fact about the other books, the film adaptations, and even the songs become not entirely a lie, but certainly not the whole truth. And that’s exactly how the author, Suzanne Collins, planned it to be. 

In the months leading up to the release of Sunrise on the Reaping, Collins explained this book is about how propaganda is used to manipulate our perceptions of reality. Fans are familiar with this theme because it is an aspect of every book in the series—especially in the last book of the trilogy, Mockingjay, and the other prequel in the series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Through Katniss’ eyes, we see an event happen, and then we see how the Capitol warps the narrative. Through a young Snow’s eyes, we see others’ small acts of rebellion, and Snow’s efforts to erase them in order to ascend through the Capitol ranks. The district and Capitol citizens might not know what’s going on, but we do. Right?    

Sunrise on the Reaping follows a sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, who grows up to be Katniss’ grumpy mentor in the original trilogy. In the second book of the trilogy, Catching Fire, we get a brief explanation of Haymitch’s Games. He was reaped (on his sixteenth birthday) into the Second Quarter Quell, a special Hunger Games with twice as many tributes as usual. He wins by using the force field surrounding the arena to project an axe thrown at him back at his competitor. 

Naturally, readers knew there was more to his Games than just those two sentences, but no one could guess that the pieces missing revealed Katniss Everdeen didn’t catch fire by herself. Haymitch was holding the flint striker. 

Through Haymitch’s perspective, we see his efforts to destroy the arena, and the rebel network that helps Haymitch disrupt his Games… and almost every Game prior. The idea that the Games have ever run smoothly, or that the Capitol has ever had full control of them, is put into question with a short explanation of both Wiress and Beatee’s subversive Games. And then we watch the Capitol reorganize and cut footage from Haymitch’s Games to hide any act of rebellion. By the end of the book we are left thinking: How much more are we missing from the other Games? How much of it will we—or any of the characters—never know? 

One of the most devastating rewrites by the Capitol is how it continuously erases the tributes helping one another. By presenting them as independent competitors or, at most, a scattered front, it suppresses the truth that Haymitch realizes—the districts far outnumber the Capitol. If the districts had any idea of the unity between the tributes, victors, and even some supporters from the Capitol such as Plutarch Heavensbee, they could overthrow a surprisingly tiny bunch of powerful people. 

However, the Capitol knows this too. Therefore, they distort the districts’ perceptions of the victors. Haymitch’s compassion towards his fellow tributes—giving them food, putting himself in danger to save their lives, and simply being kind to them—is not shown on screen and he is depicted as a self-serving lone wolf. Or as Haymitch calls himself, “a jackass.” 

The character we thought to be the sarcastic, selfish alcoholic he appears as in the original trilogy was once a boy who was willing to sacrifice himself not just the wellbeing of everyone he loved, but for everyone in Panem. Sunrise on the Reaping serves to remind us that Katniss, the character who we learn most information from, is not immune to Capitol propaganda—and neither are we. 

But Collins does not scold us or let us despair in this fact. Haymitch didn’t just craft a flint striker by himself. Someone gave it to him. And someone inspired that person to make that flint striker. And so on, and so on, and so on. 

Sunrise on the Reaping features a wealth of cameos from characters in the other books, all of which prove Plutarch Heavensbee’s quote: “You [Haymitch] were capable of imagining a different future, and maybe it won’t be realized today, maybe not in our lifetime, maybe it will take generations. We’re all part of a continuum. Does that make it pointless?” Though there is much work towards change that goes unseen or is erased, the sparks of it never truly go away. And one day, all that effort will catch fire. 

Collins is masterful in how she uses not only the story in Sunrise on the Reaping to prove this point, but uses the recontextualization of the entire series to serve as an example. While deeper moments feel rushed to fit the standard page count of the original trilogy, Sunrise on the Reaping left me gasping (literally) and emotional. Collins manages to provide twists at the end of almost every chapter that are not just for shock, but to raise the stakes of an already disorienting and mysterious world. 

It is important to note though that the dramatic irony caused by my knowledge of future events in the trilogy, and my familiarity with The Hunger Games lore, did play a big part in my enjoyment of the book. Unlike The Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I am not confident that this book can stand to its full potential on its own—which is not entirely a bad thing considering its purpose in the series. But now you can make that same point for any book in the series considering how much Sunrise on the Reaping shakes up our understanding of events and characters, causing us to question how much we really know about any aspect of the series. 

While Sunrise on the Reaping did not work for me as its own piece, Collins elevates the series as a whole by not shying away from the complex topics she is commenting on. Many dystopian novels state that tyrannical governments are bad, but Collins takes the time to analyze the many reasons as to why. She refuses to simplify these issues because they are all too relevant. The very essence of dystopian novels is a warning that if we as a society continue on as we are, this is what we will become. Collins has crafted her series to encompass a wide age range so we can all learn that in order to beat a system, we need to understand it first. 

Sidebar: 

Fans are already speculating about what the next book may be with the most popular opinion being that it will tell the story of Finnick Odair’s Games. This would be a fascinating addition to the canon because Finnick is a Career—tributes who are trained from a young age to fight in the Games. We have no knowledge of what that special training looks like, and it would solidify the idea that no matter how well-trained or high up in status someone is, no one is safe. Finnick’s book would also make sense if Collins is going chronologically through key characters in the series, starting with Snow as the oldest, then Haymitch, then the youngest, Finnick. However, I do wonder if Collins is more interested in the older, more foundational characters, making me wonder if the elusive Plutarch Heavensbee may get a book himself. She is known for keeping us on our toes, so who knows.