Sunrise on the Reaping is the first Hunger Games book I read. I thought it would be fun to read it in parallel of re-watching the Hunger Games movies, which I liked but cannot say I'm fond of.
I enjoyed it thoroughly, Suzanne Collins style convey the stress, despair and dramatic intensity of the protagonist tribulations perfectly. The overall atmosphere is both one of absurdity and fatality, and it's not hard to be moved by the tragic stories of the characters.
The path of Haymitch is… quite weird. Its hard to understand some choices he made in the novel, given what is at stakes and his anticipation of the outcome.
The last part of the book is moving, but somehow left me with an insatisfaction of some sort, and not a good one. I found this part quite precipitated and more rushed than the game part. I actually expected more refinement in poor ol' Haymitch inflicted suffering.
The problem is, this is, well, it's the same old Hunger Games book recipee, and it's quite conservative. I think I would have appreciated more something in the same setting, but covering others things than the Hunger Games from the perspective of the tributes, or at least giving us a little something in this matter, as the Ballad do.
How is the live of those people in the Capitol ? What happened during the first rebellion ? Why not the POV of a gamemaker ? Is there something, maybe some other nations outside of Panem ?