Haley R., Crofton High School
For those of you that are not super into DC, Black Canary aka Dinah Lance is a superhero whose voice has destructive capabilities. This power is sometimes referred to as her “sonic scream.” This novel is one of the many novels in the DC Icons series, a collaborative project among several best-selling authors. I had read Sarah J. Maas’ telling of Selina Kyle’s aka Catwoman’s story (which was very good by the way) and I was immediately hooked when I found out about this book.
Canary is one of my favorite strong, female characters and I feel like this writing did her justice. Throughout this novel there is a very strong theme of helping women find their voices, pun intended, and I think it is an incredible way of interpreting Lance’s character and story. The main conflict of this story is with the Court of Owls. I do wish we got a little more information on them, but the main message is clear: they are the bad guys, and very, very restrictive on the behaviors of women.
DC fans will know the famous romance of Oliver Queen and Dinah; I think this is done well in this novel. They are both a little younger than most comic depictions so Oliver is still slightly immature as a teenager, which he may or may not grow out of and Dinah is in general less annoyed by him than usual, in theory. Anyway, I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone. You don't need a ton of background DC knowledge to understand what is going on.
Click here to check out Black Canary: Breaking Silence by Alexandra Monir.