“5:12.”

From James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet’s Maximum Ride: Hawk.

While Hawk may not remember much about her life before her parents left her on a corner with instructions to wait there for them to return, she always found herself at the corner every afternoon for the past ten years. Surrounded by rival gangs, dangerous drug addicts, and evil experiments run by the McCallum and the government, Hawk has somehow managed to find a makeshift family of test subjects freaks and spends her time searching the city for food for her family: Clete, Moke, Rain, and Calypso. For the past decade, Hawk has also been able to keep her wings hidden, even though they remind her of the famed hero Maximum Ride. Things quickly go wrong for Hawk when she’s attacked by a gang, everyone but Clete is kidnapped for more experiments, and now a notorious prisoner named Fang claims that he’s her father and her name is really Phoenix. However, since Hawk is unable to save her family alone, she follows Fang’s directions and finds fellow bird-human hybrids Iggy, Nudge, and Gazzy to help rescue everyone involved. The Flock of winged adults show Hawk safety outside the city, but when they take her on a mission to rescue Maximum Ride–the woman they claim is her mother–she’ll experience a world beyond her wildest dreams.

The tenth installment in the Maximum Ride series varies a bit in tone from the previous books as it is also the beginning of a sorta-spin-off Hawk series.  The familiarity of some of the characters helps the reader make the transition to the years-later storyline, but the quick, action-packed chapters create the captivating story.  Despite a somewhat slow start, overall, Hawk is a solid addition to the thrilling teen series.