March 18th finally came and went and Suzanne Collins presented us with the newest Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping. This book features district 12’s second victor, our very own Haymitch Abernathy. I completed my first readthrough of the book the day after it came out, and I’m currently making my way through a second time with the audiobook, narrated by Jefferson White.
Before I dive into the book, please please please know that I will be speaking on the book and this will contain massive spoilers so I implore you to read the book before reading this article. It is a hauntingly beautiful and devastating read and I do not want my review to ruin it for anyone. So go read!
For those of us that did read through it and continue reading this, welcome! Let’s begin.
Part One: The Birthday
I’ll break this review up into the three segments matching the three parts of the book. So, it is here that we learn a bit of world-building and where characters are in the past related to Ballad and who they will be in the future in the trilogy. Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine make appearances as Lenore Dove’s uncles. Lenore Dove, Haymitch’s girlfriend, is a Covey descendant and from what it’s hinted at, she knows about Lucy Grey and what unknown fate she suffered. It’s heavily implied as well that she is Maude Ivory’s daughter, who unfortunately passed giving birth to her.
Lenore Dove reminds me of a few characters. She has the mystique and musician quality of Lucy Gray, a rebellious streak like Katniss, though much more blatant and intentional.
There’s also the reveal of Burdock and Astreid, who will go on to be Katniss’s and Prim’s parents in the future. We finally know their names after all this time! It is also interesting to note Astreid’s standing in the district, wealthy by district 12’s standards and we know later she goes on to marry and live in the seam with Burdock, because they just loved each other that much.
Haymitch gets illegally reaped after a murder occurs with the last chosen boy and he is sent to the capitol with Maysilee Donner, a known figure in the series already, Wyatt Callow and his ‘sweetheart’ (She’s a friend of his) Louella McCoy.
During the chariot ride, Louella is tragically killed during a mishap and in a later scene, is cruelly replaced by a look-alike who’s been drugged and brainwashed to become Louella, affectionately called Lou Lou. It’s implied she was from district 11 and doesn’t really know what’s going on. It’s this that I register some implications. This use of drugging and brainwashing Lou Lou may be an earlier rendition of what happens to Peeta in Mockingjay, where he is drugged by tracker jacker venom and brainwashed by the capitol. It’s a more sophisticated version of Lou Lou’s demise.
Snow is probably at his cruelest that we’ve seen him in this book. Taunting Haymitch about the Covey and his knowledge of their existence, and threatening Lenore Dove and his family if Haymitch continues to step out of line. What he did to Lou Lou. He’s pure evil now and I almost feel like Collins ramped it up to 11 for Snow after people kept making thirst traps of 18 year old Snow during Ballad.
I didn’t even get to mention the introductions of Plutarch, Mags, Wiress, and Beetee! I gasped and was so intrigued and excited at their roles in this book. How Plutarch was always a district sympathizer but had to play things up to appear otherwise. Being introduced to three known victors and who they were during this time. The absolute gut-wrenching reveal that Beetee is mentoring his own son, Ampert, and condemning him to death because of his rebellious actions. It really made me realize how all three of them were always trying to find a way to end the games and continued to try 25 years later during the third quarter quell. Two of them sacrificed themselves in those games in order to make it happen.
Part Two: The Rascal
This covers the interviews and much of the games themselves. This really recontextualizes his games in general and now I fully understand what Collins was saying about propaganda before the release of this book. In Catching Fire, Katniss and Peeta watch a completely condensed and edited version of his games. We see him acting as a cool and collected ‘rascal’, which we now know Haymitch purposely leaned into a bit for sponsors. Most of the time though, he doesn’t act like this, but it’s how the Capitol portrayed him.
Haymitch goes off on his own despite the Newcomers alliance under the pretense that him earning a 1 in the demonstrations, but in reality, he’s been recruited by the past victors and Ampert to break the arena and try to stop the games and didn’t want to drag others into it. He managed to break a giant underground water tank, but this does not stop the games.
We also find that he and Maysilee were much closer as friends and allies during the games than Catching Fire led us to think. They teamed together for days, only splitting up because Haymitch kept insisting to go beyond hedges near the edge of the arena and find another way to break the arena, leaving Maysilee in the dark about it. Maysilee tragically dies in the way we already know how, but the different context makes it much more heartbreaking.
In the end, Haymitch was left with Wellie, a girl from district 6, and a ruthless career tribute, Silka. Haymitch wants to keep Wellie alive for her to win the games, since his living condemns his loved ones, but when he leaves her alone, Silka kills her in a truly horrific manner, decapitating her. This comes at the culmination of Haymitch leaving a friend or ally behind, only for them to die, like Louella, Maysilee, Ampert, and Wellie. They have their showdown where Silka, as we know from before, is struck with an axe that bounces off the force field.
We were led to believe in Catching Fire that Haymitch was punished because of the force field trick. However, reading about his games now, we know that’s far from the truth. Itw as what the Capitol wanted people to believe. It was actually because of his continuous actions to defy and hurt the Capitol that led to the events of part three.
Part Three: The Poster
The games overlap with part three, but I’ll begin this section with his time after the games. He is the victor and brutally injured. He is being treated for his injuries and unaware of what’s going on. Eventually, he is sent back to his room before the games for days, before being paraded around the Capitol and sent home. He complies with everything they do because during this time, he is very afraid for his family and Lenore Dove, and before he goes home, Snow leaves him with a cruel message of “Enjoy your homecoming”. A very ominous threat.
He’s sent home on the train, with his dead tributes from district 12 in coffins with him. The most horrifying events of the book take place when he arrives home to his house in flames. His ma and Sid are inside, burning to death and Haymitch is held back by his friends before he can go inside and kill himself trying to save them.
Lenore Dove is still alive, but Snow purposely kept her alive just so that Haymitch can accidentally feed her poisoned candy, and he’s screaming for her as he calls for Clerk Carmine to help. He and Tam Amber come, where they say, “Not again.” likely referring to Lucy Grey, Maude Ivory or even both. The realization that the Covey keep dying off.
The last many pages of this book are a truly difficult read. Haymitch falls into alcoholism, pushing everyone away because they’ll just die too. Burdock, his friend, sticks around the longest but does give up on him when he hurts Astreid in a fit of rage and sorrow. It’s all he can do but mourn and think of Lenore Dove and as he puts it, she condemns him to life to keep the sunrise on the reaping from coming up again.
Despite his actions, Burdock does give Haymitch something, where he takes him to a Covey burial outside of district 12 for Lenore Dove, Maude Ivory, and a marker for Lucy Grey. It’s unknown here whether they put this marker in honor of Lucy Grey, or if the Covey did eventually find her deceased and bring her back.
Haymitch, despite it all, stays alive for Lenore Dove’s dying wish to stop the sunrise and eventually, while he failed to do so in his games, Katniss does.
There’s a brief epilogue where it talks about seeing Katniss in the hob as a child, reminding him of Louella and her two braids. How Burdock dies in the mines and Katniss goes to the hob on her own, and how eventually, she stops the sunrise.
He tells Katniss and Peeta about the truth in his games, and what happened. As a kind gesture, despite how much he and Katniss fight, she gives him goose eggs, to raise in honor of Lenore Dove.
In the end, he talks about how he’s not long for this world, post war, but that he’ll be with his love soon enough.
I cried many tears in the final pages, just completely taken by how horrible the things the Capitol did to Haymitch. It also leads me to believe he’s far from the only one. Even if you survive the games, you’re not free. Druscilla, their escort, alluded to Maysilee at one point that if she survives the games, she has no idea what’s coming. I believe things like Haymitch’s fate is what she meant. The sheer cruelty of Snow and the Capitol to keep everyone in line. His treatment of Beetee and keeping him alive because he’s valuable, but forcing him to watch his child die in a clearly rigged reaping. Katniss so much as alludes in the original trilogy that children of victors are reaped too often to be coincidence. Now I also believe this to be true. It’s another exercise in power to keep them in line.
It’s clear that because of their involvement in the plot, Mags and Wiress and Beetee are punished again. Mags is in a wheelchair and can’t speak as well, and Wiress is acting more like we see her in Catching Fire. Not wholly there. It’s horrible to understand that they’re in the conditions they are in because of this plot to break the arena 25 years before we met them in the 75th games. Even more horrible to realize that Wiress gets tortured as a teenager, since she won the 49th games and isn’t the same since.
This book was an incredible read and a great bridge to fill in so many gaps between Ballad and the trilogy proper. It answers many questions and leaves many more. Considering how much Collins likes trilogies, I would not be surprised if she has at least one more prequel up her sleeve eventually, but I don’t want to speculate on that. I would be just as thankful if this is the last book in this series.
At least the hype is far from over, as the movie was announced the same time as the book, and is slated to come out in November 2026! When it comes out, I will be in the theatres front and center to get to witness it all on the big screen. In the meantime, happy reading and rereading!
