Polygon.com / 13.03.25

New Hunger Games book excerpt introduces Haymitch's doomed girlfriend

The new Hunger Games book, Sunrise on the Reaping, continues to find ways to break our hearts before its even released.  Suzanne Collins prequel novel, out March 18, is set 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, and tells the origin story of Katniss gruff mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. The story picks up on the day of Haymitchs own reaping which also happens to be his 16th birthday and, well, fans of the Hunger Games know how that goes for him. As the original trilogy revealed, Haymitch is selected as one of the District 12s tributes for the 50th Hunger Games. But after he wins with a clever stunt, President Snow orders the death of Haymitchs mother, brother, and girlfriend as retribution for his perceived defiance. These deaths shaped Haymitch into the jaded man we first met in The Hunger Games, but a new excerpt of Sunrise on the Reapings first chapter reveals that the seeds of his cynicism and, more importantly, the hope that things could one day change were planted long ago....
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