Sunrise on the Reaping: Collector's Edition (A Hunger Games Novel)

A happy return to an unhappy place for fans of the Hunger Games series. It follows a familiar format, but it does it well. The reader knows the process of the selection for the games and the actual games, but this Prequel does a great job of tying lots of threads from the other novels into the story while keeping the reader engaged for "just one more page - one more chapter"

I really enjoyed revisiting the world of Panem, how characters that we've met in the previous books are woven into this prequel story and how we learn much more about District 12 through Haymitch and his story.
It might be a prequel but will make much more sense if you've read the original trilogy, contains violence and trauma but that won't be a surprise to fans of the books.

Read this book and you'll never think of the Hunger Games the same again. A great origin story that's easy to read and engaging on every page. Highly emotive and a brilliant prequel to The Hunger Games series.

A great book continuing stories from The Hunger Games. Great for fans of dystopian novels.

The fifth installment in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series still manages to surprise despite its familiar premise. Haymitch's games are vastly different to the games seen in other installments and particularly chilling is the rewriting of reality which is consistently utilised by President Snow's dictatorship throughout the book. Collins is not subtle with her warnings about real life issues, particularly fake news and AI. Unfortunately, I feel the most interesting elements of this book occur before the games begins. The actual games are entertaining but a little predictable with a parade of various deadly mutts attacking our heroes. There is little that is new and I don't think any Hunger Games death will ever be as impactful as Rue's in the first novel. After the games is a relentless parade of despair, which is exactly as should be expected given what we already know about Haymitch's character from the original trilogy, however at some point it does just feel obscene and perhaps a little unnecessary. Overall, I found myself surprised by how invested I became in this novel and did enjoy it more than Ballad of Songbirds. I am left excited to read whatever Collins decides to do next - First Quarter Quell perhaps?