A new Hunger Games book is coming, and I’ve read a copy. So, is it any good?

In Suzanne Collins’ world of The Hunger Games, the odds are hardly ever in anyone’s favour. After all, this is a place where people are forced to participate in an annual televised slaughter to entertain the nation’s government and keep the “lowly” communities in line.

It’s a disturbingly grisly premise, yet it hooked readers immediately. The original trilogy, which ended 15 years ago, has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and spent more than three years on The Times’ bestseller list. All the books, including the 2020 prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, have been adapted into films, collectively grossing more than $5 billion.

Beyond page and screen, more young girls have started taking up archery (the preferred skill of the trilogy’s protagonist), and the franchise’s three-finger salute, used by characters to show resistance against the government, even found its way into real-life protests in Thailand and Myanmar.

Now, Collins is back with her hotly anticipated fifth book in the series, Sunrise on the Reaping – and this masthead received one of only four advance copies in the world.

When I began reading The Hunger Games aged 12, it was the blood and guts of the gladiator-style Games that drew me in. But it was the characters’ refusal to crumble against the odds stacked against them that kept me there.

This began with Katniss Everdeen, a brave archer who saves her sister by volunteering to enter the Games in her place, eventually upending the corrupt system in charge of it all. It was her hunger for justice that saw me devour the original trilogy, and the first prequel, 2020’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. That prequel sheds light on the nation’s perfidious overlord, Coriolanus Snow. However, after the feverish intensity of the trilogy, the prequel left me cold. How could I empathise with someone I know will become the merciless oddsmaker?

But Collins has corrected the course. Sunrise on the Reaping tells the story of Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss’ dry-witted mentor in the original trilogy. Haymitch is a flawed, but endearing character. His severe alcoholism and tendency to self-isolate begs the question of what he has endured, and who he lost along the way.

Set 24 years before the events of the first book, Sunrise on the Reaping begins on the day each of the Districts’ tributes are to be “reaped” for the 50th Hunger Games.

It also happens to be Haymitch’s 16th birthday. And just to stack even more odds against him, it’s the Second Quarter Quell, an anniversary special of the Games which is to be “celebrated” by forcing double the number of tributes to fight to the death.

He’s carted off to the Capitol for the Games’ promotional campaign, including staged interviews and training sessions, but Haymitch struggles to grasp what’s in store for him. A typical teenager, he worries about what his girlfriend would think of his alliances instead of how they could secure his survival. Even as he’s pulled into plans to destroy the arena and humiliate the Capitol, Haymitch’s main concern lies on whether Lenore Dove is safe.

But once he enters the beautiful (yet deathly poisonous) arena, his attitude begins to morph, much like the “muttations” let loose on the tributes throughout the Games. We see signs of the hardened, cynical Haymitch we know so well, witnessing in real-time the loss of childhood and the crushing force of unchecked control.

Sunrise on the Reaping is everything I love about The Hunger Games series. While the beginning follows the first almost beat for beat – a good chunk is dedicated to wielding axes, killer mutated animals and buckets of blood – it’s sprinkled with the sequel’s signature spirit of rebellion. If Haymitch had been luckier – if he had the backing Katniss eventually has – he may have become the Districts’ revolutionary symbol.

This is not to say Haymitch’s story is a regurgitation of Katniss’. His experience confirms what many fans suspected all along: that the rebellion was simmering for decades. If Katniss was the final piece of the puzzle, Haymitch was one of the first.

Reading Sunrise on the Reaping made me feel like a 12-year-old again, filling me with the same sense of wonder, exhilaration and fear I felt when following Katniss around the arena. It’s a nostalgia trip for long-time fans and a thrilling, gruesome entry point for new readers. The odds felt like they were slipping away from Collins after her previous prequel, but I think this one will place her back in the victor’s seat.

Sunrise on the Reaping (Scholastic) is available now.

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