Lynn Tincher

I was genuinely excited to dive into Sunrise on the Reaping—finally, we get Haymitch’s backstory! And that part barely delivered. Seeing the early days of the Hunger Games through his sarcastic, trauma-soaked eyes added real depth to the world Suzanne Collins created even if it fell a little flat. But here’s where things took a weird turn: I couldn’t shake the feeling that The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe got copy/pasted into the manuscript just to hit a word count. I mean, I love a good literary reference as much as the next nerd, but the constant repetition of Poe’s poem pulled me out of the story. Once or twice? Sure. But over and over again? It became less of a haunting motif and more of an echo chamber. In the end, I paid for new content, not a public domain poetry reading. Three stars for Haymitch, the grit, and the glimpses of Capitol rot—but I could’ve done without the bird.