Snow May Fall, but the Sun also Rises

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzzane Collins

Favorite book of 2025

I love this book like all-fire.

I cannot stop thinking about it, cannot get the earworm out. I dream about it. I think about Haymitch Abernathy over and over. I know this will be my favorite book of the year. I usually don’t pick the most “popular” books, but I cannot pick any other than this.

This book is different from the rest of the Hunger Games’ novels. Suzanne Collins has really amped up the empathy in this book. Haymitch is nothing that he says he is. He is not a rascal, or an asshole, or even a tragedy waiting to happen. He is kind, compassionate, and amazing stand-in father, an ally, and above all, a hopeless, hopeless romantic. Not just for his love, the lost Lenore, but for a better world. He is not perhaps always physically hungry, but hungry for justice.

Haymitch Abernathy? I’m sorry I saw you as a drunkard and a fool for even a second. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I’m sorry that this was how your story was always meant to go. I’m sorry that you were the sole survivor of 48 tributes.

But the sun won’t rise on another day when I believe these things about you. You deserve the world.