Tag: Young Adult

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It’s been eighteen years since Suzanne Collins wrote “The Hunger Games”, the smash hit literary sensation that continues to feel relevant and capture the attention of readers. This ongoing series will be a review series of both the Suzanne Collins books, as well as the film adaptations of the novels. I will post my review on the last Thursday of the month as we revisit the totalitarian world of Panem and the hope of the Mockingjay.

Book: “Sunrise on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins

Publishing Info: Scholastic Press, March 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: 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 honor 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.

Review: We are now at the last book in the “Hunger Games” universe, and I remember being wholly stoked when “Sunrise on the Reaping” was announced. We were finally going to get Haymitch’s Games! I have loved Haymitch since I first read the books, and on this read through I only appreciated his character more. When we meet Haymitch he is the lone surviving victor of District 12 (and only the second victor overall), and he is a drunken PTSD ridden mess who has to mentor Katniss and Peeta, and he turns into a emotional support for them as well as an important part of the rebellion. We all know that he was going to have a rough backstory, but the idea of meeting him when he was young and a tribute was so exciting! I know that some people thought that it was going to be fan service. Well, I can tell you that Suzanne Collins basically said ‘yeah, fuck you and your fan service, you are going to only get FAN DEVASTATION’ (outside of a cameo by THE Effie Trinket), because “Sunrise on the Reaping” is quite possibly the most depressing “Hunger Games” story yet.

I am sure that that was in part due to the fact that Collins didn’t want the fandom to get comfortable and to lose sight of the overall message of these stories. But it is also because Haymitch Abernathy, while a side character seen through the eyes of Katniss in the original trilogy, has an incredibly sad backstory that has to shape who he is by the time we get to Katniss and Peeta’s games. And shape “Sunrise on the Reaping” does.

So we go to the 50th Hunger Games, which is also the Second Quarter Quell, where the ‘special twist’ is that each district sends four tributes. We had some info about this thanks to snippets in the original trilogy, like we knew that Haymitch had a fellow tribute named Maysilee Donner (whose twin Merilee was the mother of Katniss’s friend Madge). But Collins gives us a far larger picture about how Haymitch got to where he was, as well as a look at propaganda in Panem and how entrenched it is.

The propaganda is REALLY apparent this time around, as we see more blatant examples of it in this book that the regular viewers of The Games would completely miss. Whether it’s sudden replacements of tributes after horrific tragedy that is scrubbed from view (like Haymitch not being the original tribute, or the whole Louella/Lou Lou thing, my GOD), or the way that we see Plutarch Heavensbee’s original role as a cinematographer of sorts (more on him in a bit) to promote the games, we see how Snow has taken his lessons from “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and really started to implement them to make the Games full on garish entertainment and a tool of control through fear. And not just the general population, but also the former victors, as we see some fan favorites in this book making appearances like Beetee and Mags and Wiress, but whose circumstances of being involved range from depressing (Mags and Wiress being mentors and seeing them BEFORE they are where they are in the original series, mental health wise), to outright devastating (Beetee’s own child has been reaped, and it’s implied that it is in retaliation).

But the other huge theme in this book which REALLY worked for me and feels SUPER RELEVANT (not that government propaganda doesn’t) is the way that Collins approaches and expands upon the idea of a revolution. When we read the initial trilogy, it seems like Katniss as the Mockingjay is the spark that lit the flame to revolution in Panem, as so many things came together to make her a symbol and people like Plutarch, Haymitch, and Alma Coin took advantage of her popularity to pull off the uprising. But we find out in “Sunrise on the Reaping” that Plutarch has been working on a revolution alllll the way back to Haymitch’s games, and Haymitch was his first tribute recruit. Obviously, it doesn’t go well, and while Haymitch does win and while Plutarch goes undetected, Haymitch loses basically everything after he goes outside of Snow’s approval of how he handles the Games. The revolution this time is a failure, and it takes YEARS to actually achieve, and it needs a lot of lucky timing and non-controllable circumstances to actually come to fruition. This is what hit me the hardest as I read this book, because I think that for a lot of people the idea of a ‘revolution’ is something that just happens, it works, and everything is better. But in reality, it can take a lot of time, it usually involves a lot of deaths, and it also tends to have to have people behind the scenes, like Plutarch Heavensbee, bless is incredibly morally gray character, who are willing to do REALLY dodgy things to achieve their goals, with others, usually more vulnerable groups, bearing the brunt of it like poor Haymitch who lives in the poorest area of one of the poorest districts.

And finally, I also want to touch on the portrayal of District 12 in this book, as we’re kind of in the middle of the timeline between “Songbirds” and the original trilogy. The Covey are still around at this point, with Haymitch being in love with a Covey girl named Lenore Dove. It’s an interesting point in the timeline because the Covey are becoming more sparse, though there is still a clear divide between the Covey, the more merchant class, and the working class in the Seam. We also know that by the time we go twenty five years into the future, the Covey are basically gone, at least culture wise (as Katniss’s father is Covey on his mother’s side), and we see a cultural extermination in process over the series’s timeline. It’s sad and deeply interesting, and with the way Lenore Dove’s fate settles out and how Lucy Gray disappeared in the previous novel, it stings all the more knowing their community will be gone in the coming years.

“Sunrise on the Reaping” is another impactful and powerful “Hunger Games” story that avoids the pitfalls that could have come with it. If Collins is done with these stories and this world, it has ended on a strong note. Up next we start our movie reviews, and we start with “The Hunger Games”! Back to the beginning folks!

Rating 9: There is no fan service to be found here. Instead we get a despairing look at how Haymitch Abernathy became who he was in the original trilogy, as well as an examination of the power of propaganda as manipulation to get a population to believe whatever those in power want them to, and how sometimes revolutions take decades to achieve.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Sunrise on the Reaping” is included on the Goodreads lists “Best Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction”, and “[ATY 2026] Character in More Than One Book”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

It’s been eighteen years since Suzanne Collins wrote “The Hunger Games”, the smash hit literary sensation that continues to feel relevant and capture the attention of readers. This ongoing series will be a review series of both the Suzanne Collins books, as well as the film adaptations of the novels. I will post my review on the last Thursday of the month as we revisit the totalitarian world of Panem and the hope of the Mockingjay.

Book: “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins

Publishing Info: Scholastic Press, May 2020

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Ambition will fuel him.

Competition will drive him.

But power has its price.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

Review: A few years after “The Hunger Games” trilogy wrapped up with “Mockingjay”, the announcement was made that Suzanne Collins was going to write a prequel story. It was a bit vague at first, and I remember the buzz and anticipation that was tittering throughout the fandom. Who could it be about? Maybe Haymitch’s Games? Or maybe it was going to be about Mags? I was thinking it was maybe going to be about my gal Johanna Mason to see how she played everyone to think she was a scaredy cat and then eventually came out on top through brutality and managed expectations. And then it was announced that it was going to be about Coriolanus Snow, the brutal dictator in charge of Panem in the original trilogy. And I remember people being PISSED.

I wasn’t as put off by the concept. It did take me some time to read the book initially, but I did enjoy it, and re-reading it this year made me appreciate it even more. Because once again, Suzanne Collins knows EXACTLY WHAT SHE IS DOING.

So I will say right off the bat that this is probably my least favorite of the “Hunger Games” books, but that isn’t because it’s a bad book. I still really like this book. But there is a big narrative shift from the original trilogy to follow Katniss Everdeen and all of her innermost thoughts to Coriolanus Snow as a teenager and all of his innermost thoughts. But it’s still a very well written book that only expands more of the lore of Panem and builds the world even more in a way that makes it all the more intriguing. When we follow Coriolanus as he mentors Lucy Gray Baird from District 12 in the 10th Hunger Games, we get to see Panem in a transition period. It’s post-War/Rebellion, and the Capitol is still in shambles (which means you know the districts are having a rougher time as a whole). The Games right now aren’t the big entertainment event that they are when Katniss is reaped; if anything they are kind of run down and gritty. I really loved seeing the huge difference between the two time frames, and it goes to show just how much Snow influenced the Games and how much inspiration he took from his mentee Lucy Gray. Because Lucy Gray is the first one to weaponize her personality to be likable and to make it a bit of a spectacle with her singing and performance to make people root for her. If Coriolanus is a grating narrator (as he is supposed to be), Lucy Gray is a shining light of a character who has moxie and a drive to survive at all costs, even if it means cuddling up with Coriolanus (though I do believe that she DID care for him at one point, even if it wasn’t at the level of obsession and possession that he saw her at; notice I say obsession and possession as opposed to love). I also really liked seeing Lucy Gray’s Covey community, as by the time we get to the original trilogy in the timeline The Covey, a group that was trapped in District 12 after the rebellion after years of being nomadic, have all but disappeared, at least culturally. Seeing how Panem has changed between this book and the original trilogy is jarring but also so, so interesting.

I also liked getting some insight into the Capitol side of things in this book, be it with Coriolanus and his fellow students at The Academy being recruited to mentor the Tributes for the games, or the faculty indoctrinating them and manipulating their every move. We spend so much time in the Districts in the “Hunger Games” trilogy and only see the opulent and decadent Capitol in very specific instances, and in “Ballad” we see a Capitol that is grimy and, as I said, in transition, but it still has the superiority complex and the hints of totalitarianism that is still in shaky stages and is only waiting for a truly ruthless leader to bring it to its full horrific potential. It’s also interesting seeing the politics and ideologies of how the Capitol views the Districts at this point, still dehumanizing them but in a far more overt way at this point, like the Tributes being held in literal zoo cages. Or the way fellow students and Coriolanus look at Sejanus Plinth, who grew up in District 2 and whose family became wealthy and was able to essentially able to buy its way into the Capitol through loyalty and money, but is still looked down upon by others and feels like he is in an identity crisis. There are so many layers here and I greatly appreciated seeing this side of Panem, if only to get context.

Now, I may be treading into some kind of controversial territory here, but I kind of want to address one of the biggest hang ups people have about this book. There were a lot of people I saw, be it in my own life or online, who were very put off by the idea of this book following something of an origin story for President Snow. I had a few people say ‘I am not interested in getting a villain origin story that humanizes PRESIDENT SNOW’, and I mean, hey, that’s a valid worry about the book because there have been some stories where a clearly bad or villainous person gets some kind of redemption arc because of a sad backstory. But I never really had the fear that Collins was going to do that with Snow, as I know that she isn’t going to be an apologist for a fascist dictator just based on the original trilogy. Yes, Coriolanus Snow grew up during a time or war that left his life in shambles, even if his family was on the ‘winning’ side. He and his cousin Tigris are living with their completely indoctrinated grandmother in abject poverty, and while he comes from a prestigious family with name recognition (especially at the school he is attending), he has a huge victim complex because he isn’t living the life he was promised as a Snow. And that victim complex simmers as resentment, then turns into ambition, then turns into a thirst for power at any cost which turns into violence. I have always said that Collins’s “Hunger Games” stories always, ALWAYS have something to say, and the clear message of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is about the way that young men can be radicalized by fascist ideology in times of instability within their lives, and while she explains it, she never excuses it with young Coriolanus, especially since we get into his head so deeply and he is just awful. This came out in 2020 when we had been seeing the starts of the Manosphere, and white male grievances were motivating a lot of young white men to embrace far right values, and unfortunately it has only gotten worse since then. So while I understand people not wanting to read about Coriolanus Snow as anything but an irredeemable villain, I also think that turning away from uncomfortable truths about radicalization of people like him in real life just helps the problem grow and grow. Collins doesn’t excuse his actions throughout the book, which are reprehensible even before he becomes president. But to dismiss this kind of exploration as being apologia for his actions is missing the point Collins is trying to make.

So while “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is probably my least favorite of the books about Panem, I still really enjoy it whether it’s the new lore and expanded world building of Panem, how it has changed over time and how the Games themselves have changed, and how it explores the dangers of radicalization through one of the biggest monsters in the series. Suzanne Collins does not miss. Next up I take on the next prequel book and the final book in the series “Sunrise on the Reaping”. Haymitch’s moment is upon us.

Rating 8: While it’s probably the weakest of the books for me, I still find it to be compelling and complex with a lot of relevant things to say. Also, I love seeing the huge differences in Panem between Katniss’s time and Snow’s time as a mentor.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Dystopia Novels”.