Sunrise on the Reaping

“Sunrise on the Reaping is a propulsive, heart-wrenching addition to The Hunger Games, adding welcome texture to the cruel world of Panem ... This is the project of dystopian fiction: to shine a light in tyranny's greasiest corners and show how people - ordinary, determined human beings - might take it apart” - New York Times

“Collins is an excellent writer, and there are moments of surprising lyricism ... Sunrise on the Reaping contains enough both to snare new readers and to satisfy the most bloodthirsty fan” - Guardian

“A brutal, tender tale that adds depth to the franchise, weaving pertinent themes of misinformation and propaganda around the thrills and action.” - The Observer
When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honour of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch's name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He's torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who's nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town.

As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he's been set up to fail. But there's something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Four books, five films and one worldwide phenomenon, The Hunger Games original trilogy changed the face of global YA and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was an instant number one bestseller (Nielsen Bookscan, May 2020).
All four of the Hunger Games novels have been made into major feature films, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Peter Dinklage.
A feature film for Sunrise On the Reaping - featuring an all-star cast including Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin and Elle Fanning -is slated for November 2026
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES

The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games illustrated edition released in October 2024
Catching Fire
Mockingjay
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Suzanne Collins has had a successful and prolific career writing for children's television. She has worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains It All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. Collins made her mark in children's literature with the New York Times bestselling five-book series for middle-grade readers The Underland Chronicles, which has received numerous accolades in both the United States and abroad. In the award-winning The Hunger Games trilogy, Collins continues to explore the effects of war and violence on those coming of age. Collins lives with her family in Connecticut.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins returns readers to the brutal world of Panem, this time focusing on a character whose history has always been partly hidden: Haymitch Abernathy. Set twenty-four years before Katniss Everdeen enters the Hunger Games, the novel takes place on the morning of Haymitch’s sixteenth birthday, when he is unexpectedly pulled into the Fiftieth Hunger Games—the Second Quarter Quell. Originally published in March 2025, the novel is the fifth book in the Hunger Games series and explores how a bright, affectionate, rebellious teenager is transformed into the damaged and cynical man readers later encounter as Katniss and Peeta’s mentor.

At the beginning of the story, Haymitch is still a very different person from the hardened man of the original trilogy. He lives in District 12 with his mother and younger brother, Sid, and secretly earns money by helping a local bootlegger. His life is difficult, but he has reasons to be hopeful. Most importantly, he is in love with Lenore Dove Baird, a young woman connected to the Covey, the musical community that has made a home in District 12. Their relationship gives Haymitch something that is rare in Panem: a vision of an ordinary future. He can imagine growing older with someone he loves rather than spending his life under the Capitol’s control.

That fragile sense of hope disappears on Reaping Day.

The Fiftieth Hunger Games is a special Quarter Quell, and the Capitol has designed an especially cruel rule: each district must send twice the usual number of tributes. District 12 therefore supplies four young people. Haymitch initially believes that he may have escaped selection, but chaos breaks out when one of the chosen boys attempts to flee. Haymitch intervenes when Peacekeepers threaten Lenore Dove, and his act of defiance ultimately results in him being selected as a substitute tribute. His fate is sealed. At sixteen, on his birthday, he is taken away from his family, his girlfriend, and the future he had imagined.

Haymitch enters the Capitol with three other District 12 tributes: Louella McCoy, his close friend; Maysilee Donner, an intelligent and wealthy girl from his neighborhood; and Wyatt Callow, a talented older boy. They are surrounded by tributes from the other districts, many of whom have been trained specifically for the Games. Yet the story makes clear that the greatest threat is not simply the other children. It is the Capitol itself, which controls the arena, the cameras, the sponsors, the rules, and ultimately the story the public is allowed to believe.

One of the novel’s strongest themes is propaganda and control of information. Collins explores how a government can maintain power not only through violence but also through carefully constructed narratives. The Capitol turns suffering into entertainment and transforms frightened teenagers into characters for an audience to consume. What happens inside the arena can be edited, rearranged, or completely misrepresented afterward. Haymitch gradually realizes that survival is not enough; the Capitol also wants to control what his survival means.

The arena itself becomes a particularly important expression of that control. It initially appears to be a beautiful natural environment, but Haymitch discovers that it is filled with hidden mechanisms and deadly traps. The landscape is carefully engineered to deceive the tributes. His intelligence and ability to observe details become more important than physical strength. Instead of simply fighting his opponents, Haymitch begins studying the arena itself, looking for patterns and weaknesses.

He is not alone in recognizing that the Games may be vulnerable. Among the older victors and mentors are people who quietly understand the Capitol’s system better than Haymitch initially does. Wiress, Mags, Beetee, and others become important influences, while Plutarch Heavensbee—still years away from the role he will play in the original trilogy—appears within the machinery of the Games. Their presence reveals that resistance to the Capitol did not suddenly begin with Katniss. It has been developing quietly for years.

Haymitch’s relationships with the other tributes also make the Games more painful. Louella, Maysilee, and Wyatt are not merely obstacles between him and survival. They are young people with personalities, histories, fears, and hopes. The Games force Haymitch into an impossible moral situation: to survive, he must accept a system designed to make him kill people he might otherwise have cared about.

Maysilee becomes especially important to him. Their friendship gives Haymitch a glimpse of what solidarity might look like in a place designed to create mistrust. But the Capitol continually destroys such connections. The tributes are encouraged to see one another as enemies, while the audience watches their suffering as entertainment.

As Haymitch moves deeper into the Games, he becomes increasingly determined to find a way to resist. His rebellion is not a grand speech or a straightforward revolution. It is clever, desperate, and largely improvised. He studies the arena and eventually discovers that its apparent boundaries conceal an enormous force field. Realizing that this technology can be turned against the Capitol’s own machinery, he develops a plan that allows him to use the arena’s systems against the people controlling it.

This moment is crucial because it explains something that readers of the original trilogy already know: Haymitch wins the Fiftieth Hunger Games by outsmarting the arena rather than simply overpowering his opponents. At the edge of the arena, he uses the force field to redirect an explosive attack toward the generator. The plan works, but it comes at a terrible cost. Haymitch is badly injured, and the Capitol immediately begins controlling the narrative surrounding his victory.

His return home should be a moment of triumph. Instead, it becomes the beginning of his destruction.

President Snow makes it clear that Haymitch’s defiance will not be forgotten. His mother and brother are killed in a fire, and Lenore Dove is imprisoned. Haymitch is forced to understand the Capitol’s most important lesson: winning does not mean becoming free. The government can reach the people he loves even when it cannot defeat him directly.

The final tragedy involving Lenore Dove is especially devastating. After being released, she meets Haymitch in the meadow where they once shared happier moments. Haymitch believes that the two of them might finally escape together. She has kept the bag of gumdrops he bought her on Reaping Day, and the small gesture seems to represent the future they lost. But the Capitol has poisoned the candy. Haymitch realizes the truth too late, and Lenore Dove dies in his arms. Before her death, she makes him promise that one day he will help bring down the Capitol.

This ending explains the emotional foundation of the Haymitch readers know from The Hunger Games. His drinking, sarcasm, bitterness, and apparent indifference are no longer signs of a naturally cynical personality. They are the scars of a boy who repeatedly tried to resist a system that destroyed everything he loved.

Ultimately, Sunrise on the Reaping is not simply another story about surviving the Hunger Games. It is a story about how authoritarian power breaks people, controls memory, and turns truth into propaganda. Collins also explores the danger of passive submission: when a society becomes accustomed to injustice, a small ruling group can maintain enormous power because ordinary people are encouraged to believe that resistance is impossible.

Haymitch’s story is therefore both tragic and meaningful. He wins the Games, but he loses almost everything that made winning worthwhile. Yet his final promise to Lenore Dove becomes a thread connecting his life to the rebellion that will eventually emerge decades later. The boy who once dreamed of a quiet life in District 12 becomes the broken mentor who helps Katniss and Peeta challenge the Capitol.

In that sense, Sunrise on the Reaping gives new meaning to Haymitch’s character. Beneath the alcohol, humor, anger, and apparent hopelessness is a survivor who never completely surrendered his understanding of injustice. His victory in the arena may have been temporary, but his act of defiance becomes part of a much longer struggle. The novel ultimately suggests that oppressive systems can control people for generations, but they cannot completely erase the human desire for freedom, love, truth, and dignity.