Spoiler warning: readers of the original trilogy already know Haymitch survives. Nothing else about the ending is described.
Where it fits
Suzanne Collins’s Panem books, in story order:
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020) — the 10th Games, young Coriolanus Snow.
- Sunrise on the Reaping (2025) — the 50th Games, young Haymitch.
- The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010) — Katniss.
You can read it before or after the trilogy; it lands harder after, because you know the bitter mentor Haymitch becomes.
The story
The novel opens on the morning of the reaping, which is also Haymitch’s sixteenth birthday. It is a Quarter Quell year, and the Capitol doubles the tributes: four from each district. Haymitch has a girlfriend, Lenore Dove, a family, and no intention of playing the Capitol’s game the way it wants. Collins uses his Games to show how the propaganda machine shapes what the audience sees, a thread that pays off in the trilogy. Readers of The Hunger Games will recognize Maysilee Donner, owner of a certain mockingjay pin.
The movie
Lionsgate’s film, directed by Francis Lawrence, is set for November 20, 2026. Joseph Zada plays Haymitch, Whitney Peak plays Lenore Dove, Mckenna Grace plays Maysilee, and Ralph Fiennes plays President Snow, with Jesse Plemons, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning and Maya Hawke in the cast.
Should you read it first?
If you have the time, yes; Collins’s chapters on the Capitol’s broadcast choices are the part a film will have to compress most.
Why Haymitch was the right choice
In the original trilogy, Haymitch is the drunk mentor who turns out to be the smartest strategist in the room. Readers always knew he had won a Games, and that winning had cost him. Sunrise on the Reaping takes that hint seriously. It is not a story about how he became a victor so much as a story about what the Capitol does with victors, and why a clever teenager would end up hiding behind a bottle.
Themes to watch for
Propaganda. Collins is interested in how the Games are edited for an audience. Readers see what happens and then see how the Capitol frames it, and the gap between the two is the novel’s sharpest idea.
Defiance and its price. Haymitch’s resistance is clever rather than heroic in the Katniss mold. The book asks what one person’s defiance can achieve inside a system designed to punish it, and who else pays.
Memory. Several objects and names from the trilogy appear here with their origins. Spotting them is part of the pleasure, and some of them change how you read scenes in The Hunger Games.
How it compares to the other prequel
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is told from the Capitol side, through a young Snow. Sunrise on the Reaping returns to District 12 and a tribute’s view, which makes it feel closer to the original trilogy in tone. Fans who found Ballad slow often prefer this one; fans who liked Ballad’s politics will find the Capitol still central, just seen from below.
Practical reading notes
- It works as a standalone, but it is richer after the original trilogy.
- Younger readers: the book is published for teens, like the rest of the series, and includes violence consistent with the earlier books.
- If you plan to see the film on November 20, 2026, reading first lets you notice what the adaptation cuts.
FAQ
Is Sunrise on the Reaping a prequel or a sequel? A prequel to The Hunger Games and a sequel to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, in story order.
What Games is it about? The 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell.
Who plays Haymitch in the film? Joseph Zada. Woody Harrelson played the older Haymitch in the earlier films.
When is the movie released? November 20, 2026, in US theaters.
Who publishes the book? Scholastic, on March 18, 2025.
Quick facts
- Author: Suzanne Collins.
- Publisher and date: Scholastic, March 18, 2025.
- Setting: the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, 24 years before The Hunger Games.
- Film: Lionsgate, directed by Francis Lawrence, US release November 20, 2026.
- Film lead: Joseph Zada as Haymitch.
Our take
The strongest thing about Sunrise on the Reaping is that it trusts readers who already know the ending. Collins does not build suspense around whether Haymitch survives; she builds it around what survival will cost and what the Capitol will do with his story. That makes the book darker than its YA label suggests, and more political than a simple origin story. It is the prequel that most changes how the original trilogy reads.
Readers who come to it only for the arena may find the opening chapters slow. Stay with them: the reaping-day material in District 12 sets up the relationships and objects that give the Games their weight, and it is where Collins plants most of the connections to the original trilogy.