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Sunrise on the Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping

FantasyRomance
Pages
390
Published
2025
Language
English

Synopsis

Fifty years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute, sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy is dragged from his home in District 12 to compete in the fiftieth Hunger Games — the second Quarter Quell, in which twice as many children are sent into the arena. Haymitch has no interest in the Capitol's spectacle and no illusions about his odds, but he has people he loves to protect and a defiant streak the Capitol is determined to break.

Returning to Panem on the morning of Haymitch's reaping, Suzanne Collins reveals the brutal Games that forged the cynical, broken mentor readers first met in the original trilogy, and the true cost of surviving a system built on spectacle and control.

This second Hunger Games prequel is a harrowing story of rebellion, propaganda, and the price of staying human.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

DarkGrittyTenseMelancholic
SurvivalSacrificeComing of AgeMorally Grey

Genres

Fantasy Romance Dystopian Children's Books YA Dystopian Science Fiction Young Adult Adventure

About the author

S
Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins is an American author and screenwriter, best known for The Hunger Games trilogy and The Underland Chronicles. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the youngest of four children of a career U.S. Air Force officer, and a childhood spent moving between postings — including the year her father served in Vietnam — shaped a recurring subject in her work: war seen through a child's eyes. She began her career in 1991 writing for children's television, contributing to Nickelodeon progra...

Characters

Haymitch AbernathyProtagonist

A sixteen-year-old District 12 tribute in the second Quarter Quell, decades before he mentors Katniss.

President SnowAntagonist

The Capitol leader tightening his grip decades before the original trilogy.

Lenore Dove BairdSupporting

Haymitch's girlfriend, part of the traveling Covey family.

Maysilee DonnerSupporting

A fellow District 12 tribute in the same Games.

Burdock EverdeenSupporting

Haymitch's best friend back home — later Katniss's father.

All characters in Sunrise on the Reaping

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