Review: Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the most recent of the Hunger Games prequel novels, which follows the Hunger Games of Haymitch Abernathy, the eventual mentor of Katniss in the Hunger Games. The story tells how Haymitch won his Hunger Games, while angering pretty much everyone connected to the games and, especially, President Snow. Written in Collins' signature style, we get into Haymitch's head and see how much the games cost him. It explains so much about how Haymitch appears in the main Hunger Games novels as well as the fact that being a victor really is only the beginning of the torture inflicted by the Capital. No wonder he is an alcoholic hermit by the time Katniss comes around.

There's some interesting parallels between Sunrise and the later books, especially the second one. We see some of the older victors in this book, but we also see a similar attempt to break the arena as we eventually see successfully used in Catching Fire. It doesn't quite work, but the attempt becomes part of the games and, actually, helps determine the winner.

This is definitely worth reading and completes the list of District 12 victor stories.

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