Clara’s Verdict
I read the original Hunger Games trilogy long before I was reviewing books professionally, in the kind of absorbed weekend-long sitting that the series seems to induce in people who encounter it at the right moment. So I approached Sunrise on the Reaping with both genuine affection for the world Suzanne Collins has built and the mild wariness that comes with returning to something you loved — the specific fear that a new prequel will retroactively diminish what came before by existing primarily to satisfy commercial appetite without adding anything of genuine substance.
It doesn’t. In fact, Collins has written something that enriches the original trilogy in ways that feel genuinely illuminating rather than commercially convenient — and that is a harder thing to achieve than it might appear from the outside of a franchise this large.
The Making of Haymitch Abernathy
This is the fifth book in The Hunger Games series and a prequel to the main trilogy, set during the 50th annual Hunger Games — the second Quarter Quell, which mandates twice as many tributes from each district. The protagonist is a young Haymitch Abernathy, the bitter, drink-addled mentor we know from the original novels. What Collins does here is excavate the making of that bitterness with extraordinary care: she shows us Haymitch before he was destroyed, which makes the destruction, when it comes, devastating in a way that retrospective knowledge only sharpens. Knowing where he ends up doesn’t reduce the impact of watching him begin — it intensifies it.
The book was published by Scholastic Audio Books in March 2025 and runs twelve hours and forty-eight minutes. The Quarter Quell framing allows Collins to heighten the stakes structurally: twice the tributes means twice the loss, and the scale feels appropriately operatic. Haymitch is torn from his family and his love, thrown into the Capitol alongside three other District 12 tributes, and confronted with a games that has been designed, as he gradually and terribly understands, for him to fail. The Capitol’s machinery of control is shown at a moment when the seeds of rebellion are just beginning to germinate, and Collins uses that historical position to cast everything in a particularly painful light.
Several reviewers note that this may be the most brutally emotional instalment in the entire series — not in terms of gratuitous content, but sheer accumulated weight. Charlotte Watkins called it the most brutal to date. New readers should note: this novel assumes familiarity with at least the original trilogy. The emotional payoffs depend heavily on what you already know about where Haymitch ends up, and the resonances Collins is working with require that context to function fully. Read the trilogy first.
Jefferson White and the Weight of a Life Not Yet Broken
Jefferson White, best known for his role in Yellowstone, is a bold casting choice and he earns it entirely. He reads Haymitch’s young voice with the right combination of sharp intelligence and unformed edges — you can hear the person who will later retreat into drink, but you can also hear who he was before that retreat became a necessity. White doesn’t imitate the older Haymitch or play backwards from the broken man; he plays the younger one authentically on his own terms, which is both the more demanding and the more honest approach. At nearly thirteen hours, his performance carries the audiobook with consistent energy.
What Readers Say
Audible UK listeners rate this 4.7 out of 5 from 89 ratings — genuinely strong. Elle Grindley, reviewing in March 2026, praised the way the rebellion was always there beneath the surface, even in small moments. Charlotte Watkins called it brutal, harrowing and highly disturbing, but also highly compelling and pretty much impossible to put down, noting that Collins always nails the combination of emotional weight and narrative urgency. A reviewer giving 4.75 stars described it as a stunning, emotionally charged addition that dives deep into Haymitch’s psyche, peeling back the layers of the bitter, broken man to reveal the scared, sharp, and stubborn boy beneath. One Canadian reviewer who read both the e-book and listened to the audio simultaneously advised strongly that readers complete the original trilogy first — advice worth repeating here.
Who Should Listen?
Essential for anyone who loves the original Hunger Games trilogy and wants more time in Panem, especially those who always found Haymitch’s backstory compelling and wanted it filled in properly. Also well-suited to anyone curious about dystopian fiction with genuine emotional craft rather than the genre’s more mechanical iterations. Young adult and adult listeners alike will find it satisfying — this series has never really been for children only, and this instalment confirms that emphatically. Do not start here: complete the original trilogy first, and then consider The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes if you wish, before arriving here. The investment in sequence pays off considerably. Listen on Audible UK
