Audiobook Review: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Narrated by Jefferson White
Publisher: Scholastic Audio Books
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi Dystopia
Format: Audiobook
Published: March 18th, 2025

Rating: 5/5 Stars

After listening to the audiobook for A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I thought I’d stick with audio for the next book in The Hunger Games series – Sunrise on the Reaping. This one focuses on Haymitch, Katniss and Peeta’s mentor and, prior to their games, the only surviving District 12 winner.

The book starts on Haymitch’s birthday, when we learn about his life, not too dissimilar to Katniss’ when we first meet her. He looks after his mother and brother, has a girlfriend – Lenore Dove – and is a bootlegger-in-training. District 12 isn’t quite the district we know from Katniss, but it’s changed since Snow spent time there in Songbirds & Snakes. There’s small details throughout that really connect the two prequel books and the main trilogy, and I think Collins did a good job of really giving a sense of what happens between them. Most of what follows in the book will be familiar to readers – a reaping, travelling to The Capital, getting ready for the games, then the games themselves.

Haymitch soon learns there’s something deeper going on, however, and he finds himself part of a plot to push back on The Capital, to show that the tributes aren’t just cannon fodder. But before he even reaches the arena, he’s managed to form an alliance with other tributes, across the districts. This doesn’t prevent him from feeling he has something to prove, but he does end up almost as a big brother type figure to quite a few.

Something appreciate in this is how Collins uses Sunrise on the Reaping to show the initial forming of the rebellion Katniss would later become such a big part of. In the world of The Hunger Games, Sunrise kind of sits in the same sort of place that Andor and Rogue One do in Star Wars. We know going in that Haymitch fails, just as we know in Andor that, ultimately, Cassian will die, but it’s the small acts that contribute to the world around them changing.

I think a lot of people will dismiss this for not being exactly what they want, but I do think it’s such a crucial piece of the puzzle, and deepens Haymitch’s character. It makes sense, too, that with the main THG audience 15 years older than when Mockingjay came out, as a whole the book isn’t going to be as shocking as the original trilogy. And as a prequel, it absolutely has the same problems with tension that most prequels have – we know roughly how this plays out, we know Haymitch survives and what he goes through will be enough to break him. But the journey itself is still interesting enough.

I think this is a worthwhile addition to the series, and I’m excited to see how it translates to screen. If you like THG as a whole and are particularly drawn to Haymitch, this one is worth a read.