If you were itching to get your hands on a new story set in the Maximum Ride universe, then look no further! It’s got action, teen rebellion, and of course you get to see some of your favourites from the original series again. Hawk is an interesting young woman, and I love the amount of promise this story showed. It’s a quick read, and I think that lovers of the Maximum Ride series will definitely enjoy getting into this world once again. If you’re easily triggered by violence, murder, and gore, this one might be one to read cautiously.
Maximum Ride saved the world ten years ago, but has since vanished without a trace. She’s a legend slowly fading away in stories. Meanwhile, Hawk is a young girl who doesn’t know anything about her past, only that she was abandoned by her parents at 5…with some instructions to wait on a street corner for an hour every day until they come for her. She survives by staying under the radar, until she’s forced to face destiny head on and the mission she’s on isn’t a rescue. It’s an execution.
The Maximum Ride series started when I was a teenager, and something that I have noticed since then is that they didn’t necessarily age well. It was definitely great for the market at the time, but I don’t know, maybe my tastes changed, but I just couldn’t get into it the way I did the first time. However, I don’t think you need to re-read the original series to start reading Hawk. This story definitely has an interesting beginning and builds up to some very explosive battles. Hawk herself is a very interesting character, and showed a lot of promise, but at times, her personality seemed to clash with what we had seen previously in the story. This was an issue for me personally because she’s had a hard life, making it difficult to trust many, but then later we see this turned on its head. I loved that she has a hawk named Ridley, and I genuinely wished to see more of the fierce bird throughout the book.
I want to be completely honest here, the pace of the book felt all over the place for me. There were very fast paced moments, where I was dying to turn the page, and others where it definitely felt like it took forever to get where we needed to go. It took me a few days to get through this book because of this and because I wasn’t really in love with the first person narration of the story. Having Hawk and Max act as narrators works well, but I definitely feel like this story would benefit from being told in a different perspective. There is a bit of a switch up at the end that I truly liked much better, and wished the whole story had been written this way because it gave readers a much bigger insight into the world and what’s happening.
Dialogue-wise, this story definitely felt like it was written for the teenagers (now adults), and doesn’t feel authentic to how teens would talk now. For the sake of argument, the story obviously isn’t taking place in today’s world but the slang and some of the conversations feel very disjointed and a little dated. I personally enjoyed them, but I don’t know how well a teenager could connect to this.
Speaking more to the characters, I did love certain dynamics going on between them, but I was honestly frustrated with a good portion of the book because of the questions that I wanted answers to. I didn’t feel the greatest about the parental relationship either because it didn’t get a chance to develop in a way that was good for the characters (I’m honestly not sure I’m making sense, but this was as close to an explanation I could get to).
Overall, this story did keep my attention, and I definitely wanted to find out how it ended. In comparison to the original Maximum Ride, I can’t say that it compares too well. Part of it is partially because of nostalgia, and the other part of it is because I just couldn’t connect as well to this story, which is a shame because I was very excited for it! However, that doesn’t mean that others won’t fall in love with it just as much as the original series.
Hawk is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
Will you be picking up Hawk? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A story for a new generation of Maximum Ride fans! 17-year-old Hawk is growing up hard and fast in post-apocalyptic New York City . . . until a perilous destiny forces her to take flight.
Where is Maximum Ride?
Ten years ago a girl with wings fought to save the world. But then she disappeared.
Now she’s just a fading legend, remembered only in stories.
Hawk doesn’t know her real name. She doesn’t know who her family was, or where they went. The only thing she remembers is that she was told to wait on a specific street corner, at a specific time, until her parents came back for her.
She stays under the radar to survive…until a destiny that’s perilously close to Maximum Ride’s forces her to take flight. Someone is coming for her.
But it’s not a rescue mission.
It’s an execution.
