- Max, our fourteen-year-old protagonist, tells the reader that this is the story of her family—which is made up of five kids who aren't related to her by blood.
- She wants the reader to know about all of them—herself, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel—and how they were made as an experiment by awful scientists. They're 98% human and 2% bird, which is pretty wild.
- They're the only experiments at the School (where the scientists work) who made it past infancy… except for the Erasers, who are part wolf and quite violent.
- Oh, and the Erasers are after them, which is pretty terrifying.