Three Great Books #47
The latest in an OG YA series, a gritty Native American political thriller, and a heartbreaking speculative mystery.
Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins
IMHO, “The Hunger Games” is the blockbuster YA series that has held up best over the years. And Haymitch Abernathy, the alcoholic, washed-up former victor who serves as mentor to District 12’s Katniss and Peeta in the original books (and who was played most excellently by Woody Harrelson in the movies) is a fan favorite. This prequel tells Haymitch’s story — his teenage courting of his true love, Lenore Dove; his chaotic selection as a tribute; what happens in the arena; and the aftermath. Because this is the Hunger Games, there are compelling child characters whose deaths are inevitable but still devastating. But for me (and my favorite middle-school reader) the real tears come later in the book. If you’re already a Hunger Games fan, you will eat this up. If you haven’t read that series, this may be the perfect gateway drug to a story of resistance against an unjust authority. I love this book like all-fire.
Big Chief, by Jon Hickey
This was a slow burn for me, but once I was in, I was IN. It’s a tight chronicle of the five-day run-up to the election for tribal president of the Passage Rouge Nation of Lake Superior Anishinaabe. The enrolled nation is small, with just about 5,000 members, but the stakes seem huge for our protagonist, 30-year-old lawyer Mitch Caddo, the consigliere to the current tribal president, Mack Beck, who is seemingly headed for a loss and desperate to eke out a win by any means necessary. Mitch is the “suit and tie, the short haircut, the white-passing face of the Passage Rouge.” He’s also a fixer with very complicated ties to the community. Mack’s father Joe — who is supporting the other candidate — is also Mitch’s adoptive father, and Mack’s brother, Layla, is Mitch’s former (and present?) romantic interest. The plot is full of corruption and dirty political tricks and protests that turn violent and FBI investigations. And the trauma of Mitch’s mother’s premature death hangs over everything. This is an absorbing first novel and I can’t wait to read what Hickey does next.
The Strange Case of Jane O., by Karen Thompson Walker
Jane O. shows up in the office of a psychiatrist, Henry Byrd, explaining that she’s just been through a strange experience. But she leaves after 14 minutes, without saying what happened to her. A few days later, Henry gets a call from a Brooklyn ER: Jane has been found unconscious in Prospect Park, the previous 25 hours erased from her memory. She didn’t go to work, and she didn’t pick up her son from daycare; the last thing she remembered was filling her teakettle. The gap is especially noteworthy because as Jane later tells Henry, she has hyperthymesia, which means she remembers her own life experiences with uncanny accuracy. We learn what happens next from both Henry’s case notes and Jane’s letters to her son — and each character is an unreliable narrator. This mix of mystery and speculative fiction made my heart ache in the best possible way. It’s the second book I’ve read this year that will certainly make my best of 2025 list.