As a reviewer for several Christian publishers, I regularly post my thoughts on non-fiction releases. However, I am also constantly reading fiction from a wide variety of genres. Because so many readers are talking about the latest Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, I thought I’d share my thoughts below.
Backstory
I was a teenager when The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was first released and remember braiding my hair a la Katniss and trooping to the theater with a hoard of my school friends to watch the movies. I stand by my opinion that the original trilogy represents the best of Young Adult literature. It was thrilling, emotional, and packed with keen social commentary (unlike subsequent and derivative teen dystopias such as those found in the Divergent or Legend books). Even my English-teacher mother read The Hunger Games books with rapt attention. I remember her telling me to fend for myself one afternoon when I came home from school because she just had to find out how the second book ended.
The original books really are that good.
While I enjoyed the 2020 prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and the newest installment, Sunrise on the Reaping, neither can compare with the original series.
Appropriate for All Ages
First, the good stuff: Sunrise on the Reaping continues to be a book that young readers can freely enjoy. While characters face serious issues such as violence, drinking, objectification, and discrimination, these are presented in a relatively clean manner. The teen romance is wholesome and the protagonists demonstrate commendable traits such as loyalty, sacrifice, humility, empathy, and courage. It is refreshing in the age of “spicy” books going viral to see BookTok and Bookstagram influencers instead enjoying a book that is actually appropriate for all ages (teen and up). I am hopeful that others will notice this and realize that truly enjoyable stories do not need explicit content and that “spice” does not need to be the primary driver of book sales.
Thank you, Suzanne Collins, for sticking to your guns and not allowing inappropriate material to creep into books marketed to young adults.
Thought-Provoking Social Commentary
Another praise for Collins’s writing is that she seems to be an equal opportunity offender. It is impossible to read about the Capitol citizens without being struck by the parallels to our culture—on both ends of the ideological spectrum. We see, of course, the dictatorial President Snow (whose sympathetic backstory did not render any more likable) and his iron-fisted rule of Panem. But we also see the depravity and licentiousness of Capitol life. It is difficult to read of Capitol citizens surgically modifying their bodies and objectifying children without thinking of the identity-affirming alterations, age-defying surgeries, and creepy trafficking conspiracies promoted in our own Capitol—Hollywood.
Again, well done Collins for inviting young readers to think critically about the trends in their culture.
My one critique on this front, though, has to do with the reference early in the book to discrimination against characters who “love differently.” This idea is not developed any further, nor do those characters figure prominently in the book. This leads me to wonder whether Collins was really making an ideological point or whether she was simply pandering to the progressive publishing powers that be—conceding to the cultural Capitol, if you will.
Devolving Writing Quality
To my dismay, the writing in both A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping lacks the dignity and intelligence that characterized the original series. Whereas books such as the Harry Potter series develop alongside their readers—accompanying them from childhood through young adulthood and beyond—the latest Hunger Games books seem to age in reverse. Going back in time to explore the histories of characters introduced in the original trilogy, both A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping also revert to a more immature manner of storytelling.
It always saddens me when authors dumb down their writing for young readers. When writing for children or teenagers, authors must be able to filter their content without diluting their ideas or dismissing their readers’ intelligence—however young those readers might be.
I am reminded of what C.S. Lewis had to say about children’s stories:
“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.”
Perhaps we might say that a Young Adult novel that does not grow and mature along with its readers fails as a Young Adult novel. I firmly believe that the mission of Young Adult books must be to raise up thoughtful readers, not to cater to thoughtless ones. Such books should meet readers of all ages and abilities where they are but refuse to leave them as they were.
Sunrise on the Reaping was certainly not bad—I did still enjoy it and gave it three stars on GoodReads—but I worry that the quality of the series is slipping. There was a lot more “telling” than “showing,” a surefire (or perhaps we might say “all-fire”) sign of lazy writing. Rather than feeling our neck hairs prickle alongside Haymitch, we are told that he felt frightened. Rather than experiencing his heartache ourselves, we are informed that he is in love or sad or disappointed. Needless to say, this made it far too easy to keep an emotional distance from the narrative and the “devastating” plot twists that “wrecked” other reviewers left me apathetic at best and relieved at worst.
Conclusion
On the whole, I enjoyed the most recent Hunger Games prequel as a fun break from the rigor of school reading. I am eagerly sharing my copy with friends and pleased to find a popular book that is not polluted with explicit content other than violence, though this is done with an admirable balance of horror and discretion.
As long as you pick up Sunrise on the Reaping with realistic expectations, you’ll find it an amusing read and discover a few nuggets-for-thought to chew on. Unfortunately, though, unlike the original series, which lifted precocious young readers to new heights of thoughtfulness and creativity, the latest two installments seem more to cater to adults who are content with decent entertainment that demands little of them.
If you’d like to order a copy of Sunrise on the Reaping, you can do so using this link. Of, if you’re local, I’ll loan you mine.
Ryanne Molinari 