"Looking Forward To Sunrise On The Reaping" by Adam Buckley

Image Source: Barnes and Noble

As of the release of this post, the next book in the Hunger Games book series by Susanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping, will be released tomorrow. Fans of young adult dystopian fiction and Woody Harrelson alike can rejoice, as the prequel will focus on the erstwhile Hunger Games victor and drunken mentor of Peeta and Katniss, Haymitch Abernathy. This look into the past has me reminiscing about the books preceding it, and how they’ll influence this new chapter in the series. 

Unlike most people of my generation, I missed out on The Hunger Games when they initially came out, the books as well as the films. In about a month, I’ve been able to devour the original trilogy as well as the series’ previous prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (a title I can’t tell if I hate or love). What struck me is how relevant its themes and messages are to today’s world. I mean, just look at when some of these books have come out. 2008, 2020, and 2025 are all years of major upheavals in America, so it makes sense that Collins’ signature brand of topical commentary is making its return. 

Stylistically, one of my favorite aspects of the original trilogy was being in Katniss’ head, how her perception of events shaped our own, which made the 3rd person treatment of Coriolanus Snow in Songbirds and Snakes a tad disappointing for me. The preview of Sunrise ensuring a first person perspective for Haymitch made me breath a sigh of relief. Considering how much intrigue surrounds his past in the original trilogy, it would be a supreme waste to not see things through his eyes. 

My hopes for this book lie in an admittedly shallow place. I’ve always loved the entertainment angle to the Hunger Games: the interviews, the outfits, the pomp and circumstance, the drama. If I were in these books, I’d be the problem. But with how much fan culture has evolved since 2008, there’s a lot of interesting ways modern fandom behaviour can be integrated into Sunrise. I’m imagining Haymitch fan cams on Panem Twitter, tribute stan wars, and, of course, toxic shipping discourse. With how popular Hunger Games is with the fanfiction generation, I think this would strike a chord, and—maybe more importantly—be very funny to me personally. 

 Oh, and I’m looking forward to Collins’ propulsive, gripping plots, her textured prose and vibrant worldbuilding, as well as heart-wrenching character moments. All that stuff, too. No doubt the political commentary will take center stage, but as a pop culture junkie, the Hunger Games’ enduring place in the mainstream will always be, in part, due to its commentary on pop culture itself. Sunrise stands to fill in a much speculated era of its universe but also modernize the series in ways that open up new avenues for what it does best.