Hawk

July 20, 2020
Patterson and Charbonnet (the Crazy House series) reunite for this continuation of the Maximum Ride saga, set a decade after the events of 2015’s Maximum Ride Forever. Hawk, 15, has eked out a scavenger’s existence in the City of the Dead (a postapocalyptic New York City) for the past 10 years, hiding her wings and waiting for her parents to return. But when her found family, a band of mutant children, is kidnapped for further experimentation, Hawk encounters the Flock, winged freedom fighters bent on improving the world. Now reconnecting with her parents—including legendary rebel Maximum Ride, secretly imprisoned for nearly a decade—Hawk must rescue her friends and overthrow the City of the Dead’s megalomaniacal governor, McCallum. For someone forced to grow up on her own, however, the hardest thing may be accepting a family she barely knows. This accessible novel offers a new entry point into Max’s world of evil corporations and superhuman hybrids, splitting the narrative’s first-person perspective between Hawk and her mother. While the novel doesn’t bring anything new to dystopian fiction, it’s a fast-paced, action-packed read, ideal for fans of the original series. Ages: 12–up.