For a change, I’m only recommending one book this month. This is partly because I just finished my exams and partly because this book is really in a class of its own.
Sunrise on the Reaping is arguably the most devastating book in the entire series. It is the second prequel to The Hunger Games, which is a dystopian series, set in the continent of Panem, which is divided into 12 districts and the Capitol. 75 years before the first Hunger Games book, the districts were at war with the Capitol. As punishment for this, the Capitol keeps the districts suppressed, and leaves most of them in extreme poverty. The Capitol also created the Hunger Games as a punishment, a televised event where a girl and a boy from each district fight to the death until there is a single victor left. Those selected or ‘reaped’ are called ‘tributes’. These games are held in a new arena every year, making it unpredictable for the tributes. The games are also the biggest source of entertainment in the Capitol, and sometimes in the districts as well. Panem is run by the ruthless President Snow, who is notorious for poisoning his political rivals, and torturing victors if they do not obey him.
Sunrise on the Reaping is the story of District 12’s second victor, Haymitch Abernathy, who is the only living victor in his district until the start of the original series. The book starts off the morning of the reaping for the 50th anniversary of the Hunger Games, which they call the Second Quarter Quell. To “celebrate” this, the games that year will have double the number of tributes, 4 from each district. The morning of the reaping is also Haymitch’s birthday, which he plans on spending with his love, Lenore Dove, who is introduced as a rebellious spirit. Throughout the book we see how she tried to oppose the Capitol in different ways.
As soon as the reaping is complete, the murder of one of the tributes creates chaos in the crowd. Lenore Dove, in an attempt to placate the dead boy's mother, manages to instigate conflict with a ‘Peacekeeper’. Peacekeepers are a police/military presence deployed by the Capitol in each of the Districts. Haymitch steps in to protect Lenore Dove, and is chosen to be the fourth tribute for District 12 as a punishment. The rest of the story follows Haymitch to the Capitol, in preparation for the games, and then inside the games.
The book also includes the backstories to several victors we come across in ‘Catching Fire’, including Mags, Wiress and Beetee. We also get to see a young Effie Trinket and Plutarch Heavensbee. We learn that Plutarch, Wiress and Beetee are already involved in creating a rebellion. We see that Beetee is punished for doing this, by having his 12 year old son reaped for the games. This book is a reminder of how President Snow and general autocratic leaders use the loved ones of rebels to control them. The book also explores how calculated and targeted the reapings can be, where we see both Ampert (Beetees son) and Haymitch are reaped illegally.
This book begins with four quotes on propaganda, and explores this theme throughout the book. We see another side of the Careers, different from how they are portrayed in the other Hunger Games books. In this book we see them as victims of Capitol propaganda. This book, like all the others in the series, motivates us to explore who the real enemy is. We see Haymitch slowly realise that the Careers are victims, just like him. That the Capitol citizens and stylists like Proserpina, are ignorant to the evils of the Games, but they are not evil. We see him realise, and then try to show the rest of the world with his ‘posters’, that Snow, and the Capitol, are the real enemies.
There are a lot of similarities explored between Katniss and Haymitch, where we see Katniss is finally able to finish the rebellion that, in a lot of ways, started with Haymitch, before and during his games. We see the recurring motif of a raven, including several stanzas from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘The Raven’. We already see that Suzanne Collins uses a snake to symbolise Snow, and a mockingjay for Katniss, making the raven an interesting symbol to think about. It is possible that the raven is used to show how death follows Haymitch, with his games being the bloodiest ever, and him losing everyone he loves.
Ultimately, Sunrise on the Reaping is an incredibly powerful political commentary. It talks about the use of propaganda by authoritarian governments, and how it can also be used by rebels to paint a different ‘poster’, as Haymitch and his fellow tribute Maysilee call it. Suzanne Collins has done an incredible job of commenting on the current social and political landscape of our world. Recurring themes, like those of control and the power of entertainment, also feature in this book.
I would love to read another prequel of the Hunger Games, especially one that features more of the victors we see in Catching Fire. I would also love to explore the story through the perspective of a Career, as they realise they have been lied to, and manipulated by the Capitol. I absolutely loved this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the Hunger Games.