The irony in fans’ excitement over Sunrise on the Reaping
Fans of The Hunger Games seem just as excited to read Suzanne Collins’ latest novel about child murders and trauma as the members of the Capitol are to watch the Games themselves.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was first released in 2008. Since then, four more books have been added to the series, the latest of which is the long-awaited Sunrise on the Reaping, released on March 18, 2025.
Sunrise on the Reaping follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy as he survives the 50th Hunger Games, one which was especially despicable because twice as many children were placed in the arena. The novel follows Haymitch as he transforms from a young teenager doing what he can to support his family, to a drunk, detached, traumatized adult man who dreads every Reaping and puts little effort into being a mentor, as he knows the outcome every year will be another two dead children that he failed to save.
In the 17 years since The Hunger Games was first released, the media has commonly misunderstood the point of the original story. The marketing of the movies and subsequent books revolved around a “love triangle” between the characters Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. Although this take on the books is widely popular, those who’ve read the novel know that while romantic moments did take place between Katniss and both men, Katniss was overall too focused on survival to care about dating. Watering the plot down to a simple love triangle completely ignores the intricate dystopian conflicts and commentary on society. This ignorance of the original themes was further seen when the movie A Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds, was released. Coriolanus Snow, the man responsible for the yearly atrocity, is portrayed as a handsome man in his youth. His beauty swayed many fans of the series into liking him and forgetting his actions in the original trilogy that they previously detested him for.
Fans were excited for Sunrise on the Reaping. As someone who’s loved this series since the age of 10, I’ve been waiting almost a decade for its release. However, very few are grasping the irony in the excitement around the novel. The entire narrative premise of the series is that the Capitol enjoys the grotesque coverage of children murdering children. The game makers take delight in creating arenas specifically designed to make these deaths more dramatic to increase viewership. We witness this grotesqueness and yet here we are, the audience, eagerly awaiting more content for our own enjoyment. What makes us any different from the Capitol?
The irony is made even more ridiculous when you find out that China’s Lionsgate theme park, includes different dystopian-themed attractions and rides like Twilight, Divergent, and yes, The Hunger Games. This rings eerily similar to a line in the original novel, where Katniss states that previously used arenas later become museums, where Capitol children can visit and reenact the deaths of older games. Not to mention the TikTok video that James Charles posted where he sat in first class on an airplane sipping champagne as he read the new book while the Capitol theme song music played. If that doesn’t scream out-of-touch Capitol mentality, I don’t know what does.
