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A review by loveisabird
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
ok i'll just get it out of the way right off the bat and say it was disappointing to me that suzanne returned to first-person narration for this. her prose in the ballad of songbirds and snakes was certainly not brilliant either, but it did significantly help mask her limitations with the facility of language. i've certainly read far worse written first-person stories (hello, twilight) but you've got to be soooooo good at writing for it to be not irritating on any level, even when the story is good.
which, of course, is the saving grace of the hunger games. it really might be the best story in YA lit of all time. i called for her to write a new book centering on haymitch's games not too long before it was actually announced, and i'm very pleased that i was so right for that. i don't think it was absolutely brilliant or anything, and though i've rated it a half star higher than TBOSAS i might still actually like that book better, but i think it was a very satisfying return to panem and re-contextualization of haymitch's character all the same. so i simply don't really get many of the criticisms i've seen of the book, to be honest. personally i'm happy to see suzanne keep writing new stories in panem for as long as she sees fit, though at this point i'd have no clue where she would set another full-scale novel now that we've run out of district 12 victors to use. i've said this before too, but maybe she could do novellas of the games of the former victors we saw in the original trilogy? or something that explores the underground formation of the rebellion? (those things could probably be combined somehow as i think about it?) something explaining how panem came to be? although the ambiguity of that i think has always been intentional, so that might be too much to hope for.
anyways! point is, though full books might be difficult to execute at this point, i'd take anything she wanted to give. so i'm just continuing to put that energy out there 👀
finally. sending all my forever love and adoration to lucy gray baird, who i was not expecting to still haunt the narrative this much forty years later, and was so pleasantly surprised to find was still basically an active character in this book. she is still alive out there in the woods i just know it!
which, of course, is the saving grace of the hunger games. it really might be the best story in YA lit of all time. i called for her to write a new book centering on haymitch's games not too long before it was actually announced, and i'm very pleased that i was so right for that. i don't think it was absolutely brilliant or anything, and though i've rated it a half star higher than TBOSAS i might still actually like that book better, but i think it was a very satisfying return to panem and re-contextualization of haymitch's character all the same. so i simply don't really get many of the criticisms i've seen of the book, to be honest. personally i'm happy to see suzanne keep writing new stories in panem for as long as she sees fit, though at this point i'd have no clue where she would set another full-scale novel now that we've run out of district 12 victors to use. i've said this before too, but maybe she could do novellas of the games of the former victors we saw in the original trilogy? or something that explores the underground formation of the rebellion? (those things could probably be combined somehow as i think about it?) something explaining how panem came to be? although the ambiguity of that i think has always been intentional, so that might be too much to hope for.
anyways! point is, though full books might be difficult to execute at this point, i'd take anything she wanted to give. so i'm just continuing to put that energy out there 👀
finally. sending all my forever love and adoration to lucy gray baird, who i was not expecting to still haunt the narrative this much forty years later, and was so pleasantly surprised to find was still basically an active character in this book. she is still alive out there in the woods i just know it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Gore
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Police brutality, Alcohol