Sunrise on the Reaping

 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, 387 pages.

Haymitch Abernathy makes the most of a hard life: doing chores for is Ma, spending time with his girl, and hoping not to make enough trouble to be noticed by the peacekeepers. Then he makes himself too visible and ends up in the 50th Hunger Games, sentenced to fight to the death with 49 other kids. Haymitch is determined not to let them turn him into their propaganda, but some things are so much bigger than him.

This was a very solid edition to the Hunger Games series, and I liked it much better than the last prequel. It was very thematically consistent, and felt sharp and cutting. Collins was considering very literally the political principles of David Hume, in a way that still made a compelling novel. This book did, however, suffer from a problem common in prequels of popular series. It felt like it was filled with as many characters from the original books as possible, which often creates connections that strain believability to believe weren't mentioned in the original source material. That being said, none of these cameos cause any problems at all within the novel itself, and I almost like this book more in isolation than as part of a series. I would definitely recommend this novel for fans of the original series, but also for anyone who's looking for some less than subtle criticism of tyrannical government.