Welcome to your new book club!
Sunrise On The Reaping, releasing March 18th, is set to be the newest installment to The Hunger Games franchise. Set 24 years before the events of the first book, the story follows the 50th Hunger Games also known as the Second Quarter Quell.
With roughly a week to go upon its release, today we are going to go over some basic need-to-know information to help you understand all the juicy details. From the main plot to the crazy fan theories, we are going to cover all of it.
Hunger Games fans already have a lot of the basic story of Haymitch’s games, so without spoiling anything major, here is what we know about the 50th Hunger Games.
For those who don’t remember, the Quarter Quell is essentially a Hunger Games with a chosen twist that takes place every twenty-five years. For example in Catching Fire, the 75th Hunger Games had the tributes chosen from the living victors.
So the twist for the Second Quarter Quell is that there will be double the number of tributes (going from one boy and girl per district to two.)
For Haymitch and his fellow District Twelve tributes, it is unknown who their mentor was, if they had one at all.
As for the games, the arena was said to be strikingly beautiful, but almost everything inside was deadly including facing savage animals and poisonous plants. There are many more details known about his game, however for the sake of not spoiling the book I will refrain from going into them.
Since the announcement of this novel, almost a year ago, there have been numerous theories to spark the attention of fans.
The main one is that Haymitch will not be the narrator of the story. While I do believe that is within the realm of possibility, I personally do not see that happening. Fans have been asking for Haymitch’s story way before President Snow’s prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, was even announced. So to take this beloved narrative and place it on a random stranger to the fans who have no connection, would almost be cruel.
Another minor theory, the novel will contain some possible cameos. Fans speculate the likely characters such as Effie Trinket, and Katniss Everdeen, but some go as far as to even guess Lucy Gray Baird.
Author Suzanne Collins does seem to enjoy these small callbacks to tie her book together (aka showing Young Coriolanus Snow learning about the Katniss planet), so seeing a mention of either Effie or the Everdeen family seems more than likely.
On the other hand, I doubt we will be seeing any more of Lucy Gray. Her entire story was meant to be left a mystery, not to mention the capital going out of its way to erase her memory. The chance of her making another appearance in a book that takes place forty years later seems unlikely.
Something else for fans to look forward to is that a movie has already been announced to be made in the works for 2026. Let me know your thoughts on the book as it comes out and I will be sure to give you mine in my next article.