I have suffered: I tried to go to the store to get the Haymitch book

Fas of The Hunger Games are loyal, determined, and all mostly millennials who now have adult money to spend on more books. One of those books is Sunrise on the Reaping. The book focused on Haymitch Abernathy has been a long time coming.

I thought it would be nice to go and pick up my copy of Sunrise on the Reaping as I did the original series books: By going to the store and grabbing my own copy. I am away from home so I took my aunt’s car, took my niece, and went on an adventure. What I found was an empty shelf taunting me.

We got to the holy land (the nearby Target) and we went straight back to the books. In the distance, I could see the yellow logo of the Suzanne Collins world I have come to love since I was in high school. I recorded me walking to the book, so happy to finally get to see what Haymitch’s journey was like in the games. But as I turned the corner, all I saw was purple.

To be clear, the purple was not the book I was so desperately searching for. Instead, it was a lot of empty shelves.

Quickly, I found solace in a wonderful Target employe who saw my plight. Employed to help me, I begged “Please, do you have more of the Haymitch book?” The lovely gentleman saw where I was pointing and sighed as if I was searching for millions of dollars to save my family.

He politely told me they were gone and, in fact, I just missed the last one. Curse my mother for asking me to do a favor for her first! (No, not really. She bought me the others as a kid so I cannot complain.)

This is my own Hunger Games

Who out there took my copy? What child took away my time with Haymitch? Where they there when the Hunger Games were written?! If I saw a small teen with the book, I was fully prepared to quote Aslan at them. “Don’t cite the deep magic to me, I was there when it was written.”

Is this dramatic? Yes, of course it is. I’m this upset about not getting a Haymitch book in a store when I can easily order it online. On one hand, I am so happy that the love for The Hunger Games is still there and that this might mean I will finally get a book about my boy, Finnick Odair. But I also just want to be selfish and read Sunrise on the Reaping for myself.

I came back to the place I am staying in and I ordered it but it is not the same. There was nothing I wanted more than to hold my book and head to a relaxing day at the pool tomorrow with Haymitch. But alas, I will have to return home and read the book there and know that someone bought it before I could and how DARE THEY?!

Again, I’m kidding. May we all read the Haymitch book and remember how good this series is. May the odds of getting the Haymitch book be ever in your favor.