The latest novel in the über popular dystopian YA series Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping, has sold more than 1.5 million world English copies in its first week in the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The book has made it to the top of USA Today, New York Times, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and UK and US independent bookstore bestseller lists. It has even sold 1.2 million copies in the US alone.
It’s sold so many copies that it’s even outdone the series prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which came out in 2019, and Mockingjay, the third book in the series, which came out in 2010 when the series was still popular but much newer.
The book follows the early story of fan-favorite Haymitch Abernathy after his name is called and he’s torn away from his family to participate in the Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins said, “With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.’ The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”
A film adaptation of the book is already in the works and will be released by Lionsgate on November 20, 2026.
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