Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5) by Suzanne Collins 
Series: The Hunger Games #0.5
Published by Scholastic Audio Books on March 18, 2025
Genres: Dystopian
Pages: 382
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Jefferson White
Length: 12 hrs 48 min
Source: Audible
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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.
Haymitch’s story w slight spoilers.
Haymitch Abernathy has the great privilege of having his birthday fall on Reaping Day. On this, his 16th birthday, he is hoping to spend the afternoon with his love Lenore Dove Baird, but the morning starts with first helping Lottie with the still. Helping the local bootlegger with her white lightning moonshine adds to the money his mom making doing laundry for the miners.
This is the 50th year or 2nd Quarter Quell and instead of one boy and one girl, each district needs to send twice the amount of tributes. The names are read and it is almost time for Haymitch to head home, do his chores and meet his girl when one of the boys makes a run for it and is shot dead. The boy’s mother is fighting the peacekeepers to get to her son and Lenore Dove steps in to calm her. The peacekeepers begin to threaten Lenore Dove and Haymitch jumps in to try to drag her away. Now Haymitch has caught the attention of the capital representatives and he is dragged up to step in for the now dead tribute. It happens so fast. He was on his way home and now he is on his way to his death, along with snotty Marysilee Donner, Wyatt Callow, who’s family will be accepting bets on the tributes and little 13-year-old Louella McCoy.
We have a lot of familiar characters showing up for the 2nd Quarter Quell. District 12 will be mentored by Mags and Wiress. Beetee is there because his son Ampert has been drawn as a tribute to punish Beetee for working with some rebels. Beetee will also draw Haymitch into a plot to blow up the mainframe and shut down the arena and therefore stop the games, along with young Ampert. Plutarch Heavensbee is working as a promotor/director filming the vignettes of the tributes and also working with Beetee to shut down the games. A young Effie shows up to help her sister when things go wrong with District 12’s stylist.
Haymitch and the other non-career tributes join together calling themselves the newcomers. After being crucial to bringing most of the newcomers together, everyone is confused when Haymitch announces that he is going to go off on his own. Only he and Ampert are aware of the plan to blow up the arena and Haymitch is already being targetted by Snow. They might suddenly mistrust him but Haymitch is trying his best to protect his new friends from what is coming for him. He can only hope that he and Ampert succeed in shutting down the games before too many of the newcomers are lost.
THOUGHTS:
We have to remember that at the beginning of The Hunger Games, Haymitch is a miserable drunk, and he has been so since his hunger games which was #50 to Katniss’s #74. You know going into this story that everyone else we meet going in is going to die so that Haymitch can win. And that even though he wins, there isn’t going to be a happy ending for Haymitch. So while you may be surprised by some of the happenings, you won’t be so shocked that they actually happen. Remember, Katniss and Petra were traumatized as were many of the victors but Haymitch crawls into a bottle and doesn’t come out until Katniss drags him out. There really is no “winner” of the Hunger Games but there will be no happily ever after for the winner of the 2nd Quarter Quell.
Why? Let’s start with Haymitch’s love, Lenore Dove. Yes, a relative of Lucy Gray from The Ballard of Songbirds & Snakes, something that doesn’t escape the notice of President Snow. This is one strike against him.
The procession of the tributes goes wrong leaving a dead tribute which Haymitch openly presents to Snow with a motion which can only be interpreted as ‘This screw up is on you, Snow.’
And then Haymitch and Ampert are actively try to sabotage the arena and shut down the games. Haymitch is thumbing his now at a very vindictive President Snow from the time he arrives in the Capital.
Once Snow decides that Haymitch is a trouble maker, he is more than just rooting for his death–he is actively planning it.
But this arena is different from all others and being the Second Quarter Quell, they have some horrible surprises for the tributes. We have some bittersweet moments such as a group of very young kids from one of the districts who get dressed in yellow and follow Haymitch around in what he calls his baby ducks. Obviously, Haymitch is heartbroken when he sees his ducks projected on the dome after they are killed.
The worst part…View Spoiler »
It was a good story even knowing the tragedy which is going to come to just about everyone we meet. No question that the film is already in the works.
OMG. This is one I want to read… and don’t want to read. sigh… Thanks for the review. I need to pull myself together and read it…