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Black Canary: Breaking Silence
- DC Icons Series
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
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Black Canary: Breaking Silence
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Summary
The New York Times best-selling series!
DC Icons continues with the first-ever YA origin story of superhero Black Canary, from the internationally best-selling author Alexandra Monir. In this thrilling novel, Dinah Lance's voice is her weapon. And in a near-future world where women have no rights, she won't hesitate to use everything she has - including her song - to fight back.
Dinah Lance was eight years old when she overheard the impossible: the sound of a girl singing. It was something she was never meant to hear - not in her lifetime and not in Gotham City, taken over by the vicious, patriarchal Court of Owls. The sinister organization rules Gotham City as a dictatorship and has stripped women of everything - their right to work, to make music, to learn, to be free.
Now 17, Dinah can't forget that haunting sound, and she's beginning to discover that her own voice is just as powerful. But singing is forbidden - a one-way route to a certain death sentence. Fighting to balance her father's desire to keep her safe, a blossoming romance with mysterious new student Oliver Queen, and her own need to help other women and girls rise up, Dinah wonders if her song will finally be heard. And will her voice be powerful enough to destroy the Court of Owls once and for all?
Critic reviews
Glamour.com, “16 Books for Everyone on Your List, According to Book Influencers"
Tor.com, “8 Amazing Novels about Superheroes”
PopSugar, “Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in December”
Refinery29, “17 Great YA Books to Gift”
Brit + Co, “13 Page Turners for the Book Lovers on Your List”
iO9, “December’s New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books Just Might Help You End 2020 on a Good Note”
"Monir deftly balances familiarity for DC fans and accessibility for new readers, blending superhero origin with coming-of-age tale in an excellent book for fans of comics and dystopian fiction, as well as reluctant readers."—School Library Journal
"Dinah is a powerful protagonist, vibrating with a youthful rage and energy familiar to readers itching for revolution of any kind. Monir never shies away from her tale’s unfortunately pertinent sociopolitical implications, putting a refreshing spin on the feminist dystopia. ... Sure to resonate in today’s volatile climate."—Kirkus Reviews
"A compelling story of resistance, oppression, politics, feminism, rebellion, and revolution. A good story about finding your voice!” –Teen Librarian Toolbox/School Library Journal
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What listeners say about Black Canary: Breaking Silence
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Dan
- 30-03-23
Not bad
Fun story, interesting concept but predictable ending. Felt like there should have been a bit more in the final chapters.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Ben Maelgwyn Davies
- 12-05-22
Read Meg Cabot's BLACK CANARY: IGNITE instead
TL;DR - This is an incredibly dull and cliche story that fails in its attempts to be progressive and is precisely the type of thing that is held up as a strawman by disingenuine people crying "everything is too woke these days". For a much better Young Adult Black Canary book, read Meg Cabot's BLACK CANARY: IGNITE graphic novel instead.
I'm a huge Black Canary fan, and the fact I saw she had gotten her own DC Icons book made me excited, but getting through this book was hard, it's such a poorly written concept from the beginning that (while coming up with some interesting takes on Gotham and the Black Canary mythos) just ends up being incredibly cringy and so poorly executed that it was a genuine chore to get through. The main concept of the story is that the Court of Owls has taken over Gotham (and possibly the rest of the US, but it's left very unclear as to what's happening outside the city)and has subjugated the population into more "tradition" roles under a totalitarian regime, the main weapon of their control is a chemical that takes away the ability for women to sing. No, you read that right, they take away the ability for women to sing, which means that they have lost their freedom... somehow?
The worldbuilding is incredibly poor, they live under a strict regime and yet they all still have unimpeded access to their phones, and the majority of the story is based around the fact that women losing their singing voices is the main reason they lost their freedom. I understand the drive for this to be all about the ability to express one's self through musical self-expression, and can also be seen a lot more metaphorically, but the fact is that this is not in the sub-text of the book, that is just the story that is being told. Personally, I think it's an incredibly poor excuse for a story, and while I do like the nods to the mythos of Black Canary (with their being two versions of the character that are mother/daughter, Larry Lance being a detective, the Birds of Prey, and of course Oliver Queen) nothing is able to distract from the fact that the story is dull and poorly constructed to be "empowering and progressive" to its own detriment.
This being said, I have to talk about the narration by Kathleen McInerney is very good, she's able to capture a fun, youthful energy that she brings to the story, and it's just too bad that the novel is written in such a way that basically sabotages any good narration she's able to bring. While she excels at the character voices and emotions for the characters, there are moments surrounding the signing plot that feel awkward to hear read out loud. There is also conceit of the story about reading/listening to song lyrics, and it's obvious when it's an incredibly well-known song that she can't sing it because... well, there's an entire rights issue there, so she reads it like a poem and it comes off incredibly awkwardly. This is nowhere near as bad as the lyrics for the "original" songs within the story though, those songs are written so poorly that I think a 15-year-old would be embarrassed if they'd written them, and they sound so terrible (and I say this as someone who hates to critises any piece of media for this) and forced in their message of female empowerment that it's hard to not hate the story more when they're being spoken.
Overall, it's an incredibly poor attempt at making an Elseworlds style book about Black Canary, the setup of a dystopian Gotham run by The Court of Owls is really interesting, but it seems to do everything in its power to sabotage it in order to push an incredibly poor attempt at making a female empowerment Young Adult novel. Again, a much better Young Adult Black Canary story is Meg Cabot's BLACK CANARY: IGNITE graphic novel, which is better in literally every way.
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