Hello, wonderful readers! Yes, it’s time to review another excellent addition to one of my favorite series of all time. Warning, we will discuss spoilers.
Sunrise on the Reaping is one of the prequels of the original The Hunger Games trilogy. It follows the story of Haymitch Abernathy, who we know to be Katniss & Peeta’s mentor. What is so interesting about this story’s premise is that we already know the end result. Haymitch wins his game and goes home a victor. However, there is so, so much more.
Censorship and Misinformation
Suzanne Collins tends to have a theme to each book that presents a political problem in a fictional setting. The one that stood out to me most clearly was censorship and misinformation. Like I said, in the original trilogy, we are told how Haymitch wins his game. He uses the game’s force field against the other final tribute in order to win. We’re told Haymitch is confident and a “rascal” – someone who won with cunning. As you read Sunrise on the Reaping, though, you learn that much more happened during the Second Quarter Quell.
You learn of an earlier rebellion; Haymitch at the heart, determined to destroy the arena and return to his love, Lenore. We see how past victors remember the cruelty of their own games and how they want to keep that trauma from continuing. Even members of the Capitol have memories fresh enough of how appalling the games truly could be.
But even as Haymitch fights the Capitol within his game, we see how the cameras distort the view, how the news polishes up what happens, how even the other tributes don’t see the real danger all along.
The story rings scarily – horrifyingly – real. Regardless of how you identify politically, those in power manipulate our media daily. Every fact we’re spoon-fed on social media, every carefully curated press release. You could lean right, left, or right down the middle, but the truth is this – those in power will always do what they must to keep the common people silent and complicit.
My entire perspective of Haymitch has changed as a result of this book, reaffirming to me just how easily our perception of truth can be manipulated.
Down to the very last chapter, Suzanne is clear in her depiction of the Capitol and President Snow. He will stay in power and he will do anything to keep it. Lenore and his family’s deaths are tragic, affirming that any power we think we have as individuals means nothing if we’re unwilling to rise up with one another. Haymitch’s story is a survivor’s. One who refused to let those in power take one more thing from him. But in doing this, the rebellion would not occur until decades later.
But there is beauty in this, too. It is not the individual who matters. Anyone can light the spark toward revolution. There will always be others. Perhaps smarter, stronger…
Or just plain lucky.
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