Welcome—it’s 2010 again. Or at least it feels like it, because I’m back to reading a Hunger Games book in every free second I have. It’s just that good. I was a Hunger Games girl back in high school, and apparently I am also a Hunger Games adult. As a Haymitch girl circa 2008, I nearly wept with joy when his book was announced late last year.
Naturally, I dropped everything I was doing this week and inhaled Sunrise on the Reaping—a book that made me ugly sob, even though we’ve known how it ends for 15+ years.
Being a feral Hunger Games fan, I wanted to kick off a series of posts here where we’ll cover the plot summary, characters, ending explained, and my full review.
Whether you’re refreshing your memory before the movie or deciding if you want to read it, here’s your full recap of Sunrise on the Reaping.
This book is raw, emotional, relevant and action packed. Grab your copy of Sunrise on the Reaping today 🕊️🌻
Who is your favorite Sunrise on the Reaping character?
Who is your favorite Sunrise on the Reaping character?
Haymitch’s Reaping
It’s Reaping Day in Panem—and also Haymitch Abernathy’s 16th birthday. Haymitch lives in District 12 with his mom, who runs a laundry business, and his ten-year-old brother, Sid, who looks up to him. Haymitch does odd jobs around District 12 to support his family, including—but not limited to—bootlegging.
Life is hard in District 12. The Capitol’s oppression is ever-present, but Haymitch makes it work. His life is “not so bad,” all things considered—thanks to his family and his lovely girlfriend, Lenore Dove, one of the Covey: a musically gifted, nature-loving, free-spirited traveling family. (Yes, Lenore Dove is 100% related to Lucy Gray.)
It’s the year of the Second Quarter Quell, and Panem’s twisted idea of “making it special” is reaping 48 tributes instead of the usual 24—two boys and two girls from each district.
Haymitch shows up to the Reaping with his name in 20 times, thanks to taking tesserae (extra food rations) for his family. When Panem’s representative, Drusilla Sickle, arrives with Capitol cameraman Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch breathes a sigh of relief—he’s not reaped.
But then one of the originally selected boys takes off running and is killed on sight. When Lenore Dove steps in to stop the Peacekeepers—trying to give the family a chance to say goodbye—Haymitch intervenes to protect her. Drusilla Sickle doesn’t like that. Since they cannot show what happened to Panem, they need another boy for the reaping. As punishment, she reaps Haymitch on the spot.
And just like that, Haymitch Abernathy is going to the Hunger Games, along with three other District 12 tributes:
- Wyatt, the other boy tribute, who comes from a family of bookies and gamblers
- Maysilee, the town’s mean girl who helps run her family’s candy shop
- Louella, Haymitch’s lifelong friend
Lenore Dove gifts Haymitch a flint striker that can start a fire in the shape of a snake and a songbird looking at one another. Haymitch intends to use this as his token he can take in the arena.
Arriving in the Capitol and Louella’s Death
They arrive in the Capitol, and—unsurprisingly—any tribute who isn’t from District 1 or 2 is immediately dismissed as a long shot. Haymitch knows he doesn’t have a real shot at winning the Hunger Games, so he decides he’ll do whatever he can to protect Louella.
During the tribute parade, one of the horses acts up, throwing the chariots out of line. When Haymitch’s chariot crashes, Louella is thrown violently to the pavement, hits her head, and dies instantly.
The crowd, of course, loves Haymitch’s reaction—not for the right reasons. He spits at them, antagonizing the audience, though he knows the footage will be edited and no one will actually see his rage.
Already jaded with the Capitol, Haymitch is furious. He picks up Louella’s body, rides the chariot to where President Snow is waiting, lays her body at Snow’s feet, and slowly claps. A performance, yes—but also a very clear message: this is your doing.
Since District 12’s past tributes have all died in the Games (ahem, Lucy Gray), they’re assigned new mentors:
- Mads, a former District 4 winner (yes, from Catching Fire)
- Wiress, last year’s victor from District 3 (again, yes, also from Catching Fire)
Training, Newcomer Alliance, Confronting President Snow and Enter Effie
The training of the reaped contestants begins, Districts 1 and 2 huddling together. A young boy from District 12, Ampert, approaches Haymitch with the idea of forming an alliance. He is bright, and his theory is that there is strength in numbers—so he proposes all non-Career tributes ally.
Haymitch considers this, and eventually agrees. Wyatt, Maysilee, and Haymitch become allies, with the rest of them, Haymitch becoming a protective figure for the tributes. Ampert asks Haymitch to meet his dad—Beetee (YUP, all of our friends are back together). Beetee, who’s one of the instructors in the training arena, is Ampert’s father, and he crossed the Capitol in an act of rebellion. However, being integral to Panem’s technology, Beetee cannot be killed. His son is reaped as a form of punishment so he can witness his death.
Beetee teaches Haymitch how to make a battery out of a potato for light. Haymitch sympathizes with Beetee’s pain, his rage toward the Capitol intensifying. He probes to see if Beetee can help him defy the Capitol—or, as he says, “paint his own poster.” Eventually, Haymitch asks how he can break the arena, inspired by the way Wiress understood her arena better than the Gamemakers, winning by cleverness.
Beetee trusts Haymitch and enlists him in a plan to blow up a water tank underneath the arena, flooding it and stopping the Games. Haymitch realizes he’s the one pushing Ampert into the non-Career alliance, now dubbed the Newcomers, because the tributes’ tokens they’re allowed to bring into the field include parts of explosives to destroy the arena.
On their way back from training, the Peacekeepers take Haymitch out of the van and escort him to Plutarch Heavensbee’s house. There, Plutarch leads him to a library where President Snow is waiting.
President Snow is displeased with Haymitch’s behavior. Haymitch notices that the parade organizer has been poisoned. President Snow lets Haymitch know he too knew a Covey girl—one named after a color, who always wore bright clothes and sang songs of freedom. (LUCY GRAY, BABY.)
He also implies that as long as Haymitch dies in the arena, his family can live safely. Haymitch realizes that the Gamemakers will kill him—he can’t win.
Snow then reveals that nobody saw Louella’s accident, and introduces a brainwashed girl (kind of like Peeta in Mockingjay) who looks like Louella. Fake Louella—whom Haymitch and the others eventually call Lou Lou—is to participate in the Games, pretending to be Louella.
At the end of training, Haymitch receives a score of 1, solidifying President Snow’s intent to kill him in the arena.
To prepare for their interviews, Haymitch and the other District 12 tributes go to Plutarch Heavensbee’s house. There, Plutarch takes Haymitch to the conservatory and says someone is calling him. Lenore Dove is on the other end of the line—she was arrested after seeing Haymitch’s score. They say their goodbyes.
Plutarch then reveals, “The desire for freedom is not only in the districts,” clearly an attempt to gain Haymitch’s trust and hint at future rebellion efforts. He also shares that the flower berms in the arena, where the genetically engineered mutts come and go, are the entrance to the water tank.
District 12’s stylist is nowhere to be found, so they can’t get ready for the interviews—until one of their stylist’s sisters swoops in, bringing clothes from their family home. Her name? Effie Trinket. (YES, Effie aka “THAT IS MAHOGANY!” Trinket enters the scene here.)
The tributes have their interviews… and then, they go into the Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games – Second Quarter Quell
Haymitch enters the arena alongside the others but abandons the alliance due to his score—so he doesn’t bring the others down with him. The arena, designed like an eyeball (because the Capitol is always watching), is poisonous. From the water to the flowers to the apples on the trees, everything is toxic to them.
Haymitch travels the arena, eventually accompanied by Lou Lou, who ran away after Wyatt—who had a soft spot for her—dies in the initial seconds.
Louella eventually dies after smelling a bush of poisonous flowers. Haymitch meets up with Ampert, and the two of them find the way into Sublevel A, where the water tank is. Haymitch is down there, attempting to rig the tank. When he comes out after planting the device, Ampert is nowhere to be seen. He finds Ampert being eaten by mutt squirrels—a punishment meant for Beetee.
The tank explodes, flooding the arena, but does not fully disable it. Haymitch, determined to finish what he started, decides to locate the generator—where Beetee told him it would be, on the north side. The north side of the map is protected by a hedge maze and invaded by mutt ladybugs that suck blood and explode, so he can’t make it too far.
Later, Haymitch’s path collides with the Careers, and Maysilee appears out of nowhere with a poison dart, saving his life.
Haymitch and Maysilee explore the perimeter after Haymitch convinces her to go north with him. There, they encounter two Careers and Gamemakers. One of the Careers and Maysilee kill the Gamemakers. Haymitch wants to explore the maze, and Maysilee, who is aware Haymitch is doing something he can’t explain, splits from him briefly to get some food.
Haymitch finds the end of the arena and the generator, 100 feet down a cliff at the edge of the arena. He also realizes that there is a force field above the generator, and whatever you throw bounces over it. He can’t investigate it further when he hears Maysilee scream—she’s being attacked by mutt birds, her punishment for killing a Gamemaker.
After Maysilee and the other Career die, three tributes remain: Wellie, a sweet girl from the Newcomers; Haymitch; and Silka, the last Career. Haymitch decides to find Wellie and kill Silka, making Wellie the victor. He finds Wellie hiding in a tree, malnourished and hurt. Wellie begs him not to leave her, and Haymitch promises he’ll be right back—then goes to find her food. Silka finds Wellie during this time and decapitates her.
Haymitch and Silka fight, Silka chasing Haymitch into the hedge maze. Haymitch receives a gut wound that threatens to spill his intestines, and is backed into the edge of the arena. Silka throws her ax at him, and Haymitch ducks, knowing it’ll bounce off the force field. It does—and the ax hits Silka in the face, making Haymitch the victor.
Knowing he’s only got a few seconds left, Haymitch realizes Maysilee’s token contains parts for another device that could detonate the generator. Haymitch rigs the device together, throws it at the generator—and loses consciousness, victor of the Quarter Quell… and dying.
After the Hunger Games and Returning to District 12
Haymitch wakes up in the apartment he stayed in during the Hunger Games, after spending a few days in a lab. He’s wounded, alone, but alive. He spends days in isolation, healing. After a few days, he’s brought to his crowning, where Caesar Flickerman hosts (YES, that Caesar), and he’s crowned a victor.
Terrified about his family’s fate, Haymitch bends the knee and sucks up to President Snow in every way he can. He’s put in a literal golden cage at all the victory parties, where he’s treated like a pet.
When Haymitch is eventually allowed to return home, no one is waiting at the station. He walks the streets of District 12, agonized and haunted by what he went through in the Games. When he arrives at his home, he finds it burning, his mother and Sid dying in the fire.
Devastated, Haymitch desperately waits for Lenore Dove to be released by the Peacekeepers. Eventually, she is—and they meet in the meadows. They reunite, and Lenore Dove says she can finally eat the gumdrops Haymitch left for her before he went to the Hunger Games.
Haymitch realizes, all too late, that instead of the rainbow pack he left for her, all the gumdrops in the pack are red—President Snow’s color. He stops Lenore Dove from eating the rest, but she’s already eaten one. Lenore Dove feels chest pain, collapses, and dies instantly.
Sunrise on the Reaping Ending Explained, Epilogue, and Going into the Original Hunger Games Trilogy
Haymitch, having lost everyone, turns to sleep medications and booze. He gets regularly drunk, seeking the oblivion, haunted by the Games and those he lost. He can’t bear the sobriety.
Plutarch Heavensbee arrives for his victory tour to find him at his lowest. He tells Haymitch, maybe this wasn’t our time—but someone (KATNISS) is going to come along and take the Capitol down. Until then, they have to build up for her, find an army (hello, District 13), and do what they can.
Haymitch says they don’t want him because he has nothing left. Plutarch tells him, a man who has nothing left to lose is the most powerful man in a rebellion.
So, Haymitch bides his time.
In the epilogue, we get his POV of seeing Katniss and Peeta for the first time. Haymitch has never loved anyone else—like Lenore Dove and her geese, he mated for life, even if it’s with her ghost. He thinks Lenore’s soul aged with him, and she’s waiting on the other side when his liver eventually gives out.
He talks about resisting Katniss and Peeta, about how he wanted to keep his walls up—but eventually, they brought his walls down, just like they brought down the Capitol.
And that, my friends, is the brutal, brilliant, soul-crushing journey of Sunrise on the Reaping.
I’m so glad you’re here reading my summary—but honestly, it doesn’t do the book justice. There are so many more details I didn’t include because this would’ve been way too long, so please: go read the book and come tell me what you thought.
Despite knowing how this one was going to end, seeing how we got to where we were in the original trilogy—and experiencing Haymitch’s heartbreaking story—was worth every single word.
I’ll be continuing with my full review and character breakdown in the next posts, but in the meantime, I really hope you pick up Sunrise on the Reaping. You’ll love it if you enjoy dystopian worlds, political intrigue, and finding those missing connecting pieces to a world we’ve been reading about for 15+ years.
Until next time—may the odds be ever in our favor.
Can’t get enough of Sunrise on the Reaping? The first teaser for Sunrise on the Reaping movie is out today! In theathers November 20, 2026.
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