As you open your eyes, you are greeted by the most breathtaking landscape you’ve ever seen: a meadow stretching for at least a mile in each direction, surrounded by a dense forest, and a tall mountain gleaming with snow in the distance. The air even seems to have a sweetness to it; you almost forget your situation until your eyes stumble across the huge, golden cornucopia standing in the middle of the meadow, scattered with an array of weapons, and 48 tributes standing an equal distance away from it. You start to hear the countdown and position yourself ready to strike: 3…2…1. “Let the 50th Hunger Games begin.”

The fifth and newest installment of the beloved Hunger Games series, Sunrise on the Reaping, written by the talented Suzanne Collins, takes place 40 years after the events of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games. This book follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy on his journey to becoming the 50th victor to win the Hunger Games. This game being the 50th means it falls on a quarter-quell year; every 25 years, the gamemakers add a twist to the games, this year’s being double the tributes, 48 instead of the annual 24, two boys and two girls from each district. Haymitch will leave behind his love, Lenore Dove, his mother, and his brother, Sid, to join Maysilee, Wyatt, and Louella in the arena to fight to the death.

Fans of the Hunger Games have begged for this book for years; we got a preview into Haymitch’s game in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second book of the series, but as we know now, it wasn’t all what it seemed. This book sheds a new light on Haymitch’s backstory and helps the reader understand his character beyond the alcohol or moody attitude. We also got a deeper glimpse into the horrors of the capital and how every victor had a reason to fight against it. Haymitch learns this as the book goes on; at the start, he’s wary of the capital and its evil, but by the end, it’s fully affected his life. “In the first books and movies, we can see Haymitch is scared of the capital and its wrath.” Pat Gow stated, by the end, we understand why Haymitch helped the rebellion and helped Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the books, to end the games.

I found the most fascinating part of the books was how Collins wrote in characters from the original books and had them interact but also created new and interesting characters that still had ties to the original books. One example of this is how Haymitch’s close ally, Maysilee Donner, is a girl from his district. To the casual reader, she may just be seen as a supporting character, but she is so much more. Maysilee is the aunt of Madge, the girl who is responsible for gifting Katniss her mockingjay pin. Maysilee originally owned this pin and took it into the games herself; this pin would later be the symbol of the rebellion against the capital and the games. There are many fun Easter eggs like this in the book for diehard Hunger Games fans.

This book does an excellent job of putting the reader back into Panem and back into the Arena. As Bozena Smith states, “I grew up with the Hunger Games and have so much nostalgia with reading similar themes and reading about the tributes back in the arena.” The way Collins develops the characters and gives them so much to fight for would have any reader on the edge of their seat. I would highly recommend this book to any fan of the Hunger Games books or movies; reading this book takes you back to your childhood self reading the original series, and it’s just as fun to read! I would also recommend this book and the entire series to anyone who hasn’t read them. If you do, I would start in publishing order and not chronologically. The Hunger Games is an epic series that has gripped young adults all across the world. If you skip out on this series, you will be seriously missing out. This book feels like the perfect piece in the puzzle of this series, and I hope this is not our last trip to Panem or into the arena! I would rate this book a 4.5/5.