Fair warning - all those fragile little white boys who are always complaining "why's it always gotta be so political? Ugh!" should probably skip this review and get back to complaining about Asian women existing in Star Wars or a female Doctor Who, cause it's gonna get real political up in here...

The simple fact of the matter is all art is political. Vox, by Christina Dalcher, in particular is fully informed by the current political trends in the USA. Dalcher explores the aftermath of the forceful rise of far-right Christian rule in America (a very real, very legitimate threat), where the presidency has become the puppet figurehead of a highly influential extremist evangelical preacher (rather than say, oh, I dunno...Russia.). Overnight, America changes as the Pure Movement sweeps through government, and in short order women are forced to wear bracelets that deliver electric shocks if they speak more than 100 words a day. Reverend Corbin believes a woman's place is in the home, and the US government begins removing women from the workplace, forcibly establishing its absolute patriarchal rule. Women are all but silenced and utterly removed from the day-to-day life of society.

In an interview with The Bookseller, Dalcher said her novel is not a call to arms, but "a call to pay attention. ... The fact is that our lives really can change in a heartbeat. We saw this with [Donald Trump's] executive order banning travel from Muslim countries to the United States. Everything changed very quickly." The rise of Trump has seen a radical and rapid shift in democratic norms bending toward authoritarianism (to see just how much his first year in office changed things, Amy Siskind's The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump's First Year looks worthwhile). Listening to Vox, narrated by Julia Whelan, over the course of a week that saw alleged rapist Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by serial sexual offender Donald Trump, appointed to the Supreme Court is a stark reminder of just how real the patriarchal rule in America is and how fully women's voices can (and will) be ignored, if not yet completely silenced.

Vox uses its allegorical limitations on women's voices to make some very important points, ones we should all be cognizant of and working to prevent (pssst...don't forget to vote November 6!). This is a highly political book that takes American gender wars to the next step, highlighting both men and women's complicity in this national silencing, the patriarchal "norms" of Christianity, and the sad fact that women really have become a punching bag in American society (to the point that Trump even mocked a sexual assault survivor and Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford during one of his recent rallies to stir up his base).

While it has plenty of worthwhile things to say, Dalcher's work ultimately exists in the shadow of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and oftentimes feels utterly derivative in its plot points and execution. So much of the story in Vox has been done before, and while Dalcher does insert a few original story beats much of the book merely feels like a reworking of Atwood's seminal novel.

Strangely, I actually liked Dalcher's book better thanks to some of her concepts and willingness to get into some of the nitty gritty. It's not the dull slog I recall The Handmaid's Tale being, and there's actually some moments of action. Dalcher posits her story from the perspective of a neurolinguist, although I would have appreciated a bit more focus on the impact of female children's communication development being so forcefully aborted. Imagine, if you will, a baby girl just learning to talk and babble, and then being electrocuted once she breaks the 100 word limit. Picture how stunted she would become once denied a voice. Dalcher approaches this topic late in the book in a very brief segment, but it's an idea I would have loved to have seen more fully explored.

And therein lies my main rub with Vox. Dalcher presents some intriguing ideas, but never truly commits to any of them. The shock bracelets present an interesting premise, but how women were subjugated and forced into wearing them is entirely glossed over. The impact on America's economy of losing half its workforce is all but ignored. We do get a few potent reminders of what the far-right Christian rule looks like in Dalcher's near-future, but we could have used more. There's a lot in Vox that feels half-baked.

Thankfully, Julia Whelan, an Audie Award winner, is fully committed as this audiobook's narrator. I first listened to Whelan earlier this year in her reading of Michael McDowell's The Amulet, so when I found out she was narrating Vox I couldn't miss the chance to listen to this book, as well. She does an outstanding job here, capturing those moments of high emotional intensity - you can feel the stress and worry, the excitement and fear, and those brief glimmers of hope that shine through this dystopian nightmare. Whelan is an excellent narrator and she kept me engaged throughout the entirety of Vox.

Dalcher shows some promise as a novelist in this debut, and I'll be curious to see how she develops as she steps out the shadows of Atwood's influence and discovers her own voice and original ideas. Vox, like A Handmaid's Tale, is certainly a product of its time and its era's politics, with Trump's regime and #MeToo clearly weaved into the story's DNA. Here's to hoping its more extreme ideas stay solidly in the realm of fiction.

I couldn’t resist reading Vox when I saw it on the shelf next to The Handmaid’s Tale. The narrative unfolds in a tense first person and the concept has all the right tones of dystopian fiction.

What perhaps was most striking about this book was the way the author used her knowledge of linguistics to shape a story that has power and long-lasting meaning.

Highly recommended.

Very timely issues are raised in this book and I will be recommending it to several of my feminist friends.

This was an interesting story. It was scary and something I hope to never see actually occur, even though it wouldn't surprise me.

I enjoyed this book's theme and the characters were well written. I'll definitely suggest this book to library patrons and friends.

I was really excited to read this book. I thought the premise was fascinating and more than a little disturbing. While I enjoyed the book, I found it got bogged down a little in the science department, which took me out of the story at times. I also found the ending a little too rushed and tied up too neatly.

I liked the relationship between Jean and her eldest son and how differences of opinion, politics and philosophy can divide a family. Obviously Jean needed to have a daughter as a plot point, but I found the twins to be unnecessary characters who addd little to the plot. I also liked the plot point around Jean’s husband.

A solid, timely read

What if women were only given 100 words to speak a day?

What would you do?

A religious movement has swept the country, resulting in the stripping of women’s rights and freedoms. One woman is shocked when it happens and powerless to stop it. That is until she realizes that her denial of what has happened is not only affecting her but also her children. Now she Jean will have to fight…not only for her voice but the voices of all.

Vox is a dystopian fantasy that doesn’t seem all that fantastical. Taking liberties with our current government and the recent surge of the religious far right, Dalcher weaves a dark cautionary tale that hit this reader close to home. Set in the present, we are given a crash course in how the country is overtaken by “pure” religion and various groups’ freedoms are slowly stripped away. Dalcher shows us how easy it is to deny what is happening right before our eyes until it’s too late to do anything. Silence can be deadly. I found myself alternating between sadness and anger as the protagonist, Dr. Jean McClellan, tells her story. At times uncomfortably honest, she addresses her apathy in the face of the danger coming and her initial acceptance of what has passed. She draws a bleak picture of the future, showing us how life has changed for her and others; from the classroom to the bedroom. The story moves along at a steady pace with an edgy atmosphere that tightens around you like a noose. My slappy hands were on high alert all through the book. The ending was a bit off-kilter though. I had issues with the catalyst and the subsequent results. While I honestly don’t believe this could happen, I do believe we have to remain ever vigilant. Regardless, Vox is a compelling read along the lines of Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale; giving readers a glimpse at a future determined to erase them and their voice.

Grade: B-

This book had an excellent premise, but ultimately fell a bit flat for me in its execution.

While the book’s pace kept me turning pages very quickly, the ending was just… confusing. The plot’s climax felt rushed, and I had to re-read a couple scenes because I was confused about what was actually happening. I don’t want to give anything away, but I literally couldn’t visualize the action during the crucial confrontation (Who has the gun? I thought he had the gun? Why did she fall on the ground?) Then the resolution felt a bit convenient.

It was very thought provoking though. I look forward to discussing it with my book club.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for providing me with a free review copy in exchange for my honest review*

3.5 stars. A thought-provoking dystopian story of extremist "Christians" inflicting a misogynistic rule of law on the United States. The story makes a great point about the need for people to engage in our political system - voting, marching, talking to your representatives. Some other reviewers have said that they felt the portrayal of the "villains" was way off base. I am not so certain. I can see where anger and entitlement and the -isms (sexism, racism, etc.) could converge in just the right circumstances to bring about something awful like what is portrayed in the book. So the story worked for me.

Unfortunately, there were several pieces that didn't. I thought the villains were sort of cardboard - not very nuanced. And this story is supposed to take place in basically the current administration, although with different characters. I don't think things are such that something like this would come about in the current political environment, but further down the road, with the "right" sort of smaller changes, maybe. I also did not like the main character. I found her abrasive, foul-mouthed (in a generic way - not as a means to show her anger in being trapped in such a society), and generally unlikable. Her justification for some of her choices also turned me off. And the ending was not satisfying - it happened very quickly and the final nail in the coffin so to speak didn't even involve the protagonist at all. It happened off the page with other characters. I realize in the context of this society and the ending the author chose, it was the only way it could have happened, but the protagonist should really be the one to "save the day" completely. Otherwise your readers can feel robbed that they invested in the character but she was powerless to impact the ending the author chose. At least, that is how I felt.

If you are an avid watcher of the political landscape, if you are a person of faith who finds yourself at odds with what is described as "Christian" sometimes in the news or political posts, if you love dystopian stories, you might want to check this out. The changes in the culture in this book and the evolution of the dystopia was really interesting for me.

I enjoyed the first 3/4 of the this novel, but I didn't care for the ending. I found it confusing and yet too simplistic at the same time. I couldn't really connect with the main character, because I didn't really like her all that much.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
I don't generally read dystopian novels but I did this one. It totally creeped me out but I could not put it down. Though parts were over blown and not believable, there is enough going on in our country today that it never seemed totally out of the question. Worth reading and pondering and then getting out and doing something to make our world safe for women.

Reminiscent of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Vox tells the story of a future America where women have lost basic rights, even the right to speak. This is the story of Jean, who, instead of being a scientific researcher in the field of speech, now stays home and works as a housewife. Like other females in America, she wears an electric shock bracelet that limits her speech to only 100 words a day. Jean realizes that she has contributed to the current state of women through her lack of efforts in participating in democracy and abstaining from voting and taking part in politics until it was too late.

Jean is unhappy that she can no longer work, that her daughter doesn't talk and is not permitted to learn to read, and that her sons are 'buying' into the party line and becoming condescending and arrogant. Because her very specific skills are required by the President, Jean has the opportunity to help bring about change and create a better world for her daughter.

DNF @ meh? There was a lot of scan-reading.

I haven’t read many of the recent feminist speculative novels cropping up that are clearly taking inspiration from the newly renewed popularity of The Handmaid’s Tale, but I requested this one and I honestly wish I hadn’t. The issue with Vox, in particular, is it doesn’t seem to be written to show society the dangers in an attempt to right future wrongs, but rather to capitalize on the fears of many. In the beginning of Vox, we’re introduced to a world where all females are fitted with a metal bracelet which delivers a shock if the individual goes over their allotted 100 words per day. Paper, pencils, books, all banned. Jean is a mother of three boys and one girl and she mentally contemplates what she could have done differently to avoid the outcome of the world she finds herself living in. The flashbacks she has regarding her grad school roomie warning her against inaction amid the rise of fundamentalism, how religions are wholly evil, and the indirect references to our current president were all a bit too on the nose. It also didn’t help that the second half turned into some blockbuster thriller and if I couldn’t take the novel seriously before, I certainly wasn’t able to at that point. I’m all about driving home the importance of voting but lines like:

“My fault started two decades ago, the first time I didn’t vote … was too busy to go on [a march].”

I mean criminy, talk about subtle. Voting is incredibly important and I believe that everyone should exercise their right to do so. A single vote might not be the decider in a race, or it could, but at the very least you’ve gone out there and made your opinion known. Dalcher was trying to make a good point, that women’s rights are precarious at best, but maybe don’t wrap up your cautionary tale in the cloak of a thriller simply to make it more exciting.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I want to thank @berkley and @netgalley for providing me a copy of Vox in exchange for an honest review.

Listen, if you want to read a book that makes you think about our current state of political affairs (U.S.) then this is THE ONE for you.

Christina Dalcher does an amazing job describing the harmful effects of not voting for our political leaders in her recent book VOX.

Imagine a world where women ultimately are forced to wear bracelets that track their daily word count. They are only allotted 100 words a day and are subjected to a form of punishment if they go over this amount.

Dalcher presents the reader with multiple subliminal messages and gives extreme circumstances on how detrimental it is in society for women. We may be in 2018, but there are still laws in parts of the globe that subject women to unfair treatment. This, unfortunately, hits close to home for Saudi women since they were recently allowed to even begin driving. Dalcher successfully conveyed her message and I applaud for presenting such a drastic, yet important story.

I hope whomever reads this after me takes note of each situation Jean, the main character, finds herself in and realizes how important it is to get out and vote because ANYTHING (yes, ANYTHING) can happen if we don’t exercise that right.

I'm a sucker for dystopian novels. The ever present thought of, "could this really happen" keeps me reading. Vox shocked me. Kept me intrigued throughout the entire story because of this factor. There were parts that felt a bit too unrealistic to me as if everything that could possibly be thrown into the premise to make for shock value was added in, but overall this novel fits the mold of a solid dystopian that creeps you out enough to keep reading.

Vox is a dystopian tale in the not too distant future about Jean, a neuroscientist who, like all women in the US, have been forced back into the home (no job, no property, and no money, surviving only through her husband’s means) and only allotted 100 words a day. In this terrible future, the “Pure Movement,” grown out of fear and dissatisfaction of change by a specific portion of society has taken hold. This movement wants to take America back to a “simpler” time, where women were not a part of the workforce, where a family consists of only a man and a woman and their progeny, and where women should remain silent homemakers. This aspect, and much of the book, are very reminiscent of and reactionary to our current political climate. It’s all very “Make America Great Again,” an idea that the author meant to come through, and much of the texts supports this parallel.
One of the great things about this book is the visceral fear and horror it evokes in the reader. As I read the book, with each new “idea” of imprisonment for women, for the LGBTQIA members of society, I felt their fear and terror in myself. Because the book doesn’t seem to stretch too far from our current political situation, I could very much trace the lines from my present to Jean’s. It’s very disconcerting, to say the least.

That being said, I feel there was a lot in this book that left me feeling dissatisfied. For one thing, Jean is very much a dislikable character. For all her righteous anger at the treatment of women in this regressed society, she is very selfish and very cruel – there are specific moments that make it very hard for me to be on her side, despite me abhorring the Pure Movement. She often belittles her husband (in her head) because he is the kind of person to just stand aside and let things happen, even if he disagrees (like when the Pure Movement takes Jean’s job away, when their son becomes a strong supporter of the Pure Movement, etc). His apathy disgusts her and I can understand her up to a point. He still loves and supports her and does what he can, and even sacrifices his life to save her and the entire country.

Besides, Jean is basically the pot calling the kettle black in this – much of the book is her thinking back to her friend Jackie (or “Jacko” as Jean lovingly calls her – honestly who would want to be called Jacko? The names in this book are really something else), who was a staunch activist and often berated Jean for not doing something (like voting, dissenting against the politicians who eventually sanction the Pure Movement, etc). Jean was too focused on her own life and work to care and now lives through the consequences of her inaction, like many. She was just as apathetic as her husband, and even though she admits that she was at fault for not doing something, or that when she did it was too late, she somehow thinks she is better than her husband. She has a constant holier than thou attitude through most of the book and it’s a bit infuriating.

Also, Jean is a participant in an affair with one of her coworkers, an Italian (she is also Italian, we learn through flashbacks) named, of all things, Lorenzo. Side comment: I hate that his name is Lorenzo. It’s such a trashy Romance novel name that I couldn’t not laugh every time Jean wistfully thinks of Lorenzo and how much she longs for him to hold her, kiss her, etc. All the thinks she thinks her husband incapable of). I’m not a fan of affairs, and Jean’s is one of those that seems born out of her own newly discovered distaste for her apathetic husband. Every time she compares Patrick to Lorenzo, it’s always in an emasculating way. Everything Patrick is is unromantic or unsexy. Patrick, a doctor and also a nerd (just like her, I might add), apparently knows nothing about how to treat a woman (despite the fact that Jean must have thought differently when she married him) and even his love for her is nothing compared to what Jean has with Lorenzo…I really disliked how much the author seemed to focus on this particular aspect. The political intrigue and wondering how Jean might be able to overturn it is far more interesting than how sexually sated Jean is with Lorenzo instead of her own husband.

And lastly about Jean – she continually demeans (in her head) one of her co-workers who she knows is an idiot and undeserving of heading her research team. I don’t generally care that she insults him in her head, he is truly a terrible human being, and a perfect example of unfounded male superiority. However, she makes fun of him being small, as if being small is a) not masculine b) shows a lack of something in character and c) is uncomfortable. As a short person, though I am a woman, and I know men are generally tall, I find it unfair for Jean to have such derision for shortness. There is a particular line where Jean is sure it must be uncomfortable for him to be seated in a chair where his feet can’t reach the ground. As someone who always has this issue, I can say it is not uncomfortable, it just is a fact of the matter. I don’t appreciate the author using smallness to insinuate these characteristics, as if this guy’s smallness is a physical example of his villainy. It’s very cruel, in my opinion, and it makes me dislike Jean, the supposed “hero” of the story.

My dislike of Jean is the main reason for my lower review of this book. Otherwise, I think the writing is pretty good, though, for me, there were quite a few moments where I stumbled over Dalcher’s sentences because they were structured very weirdly. I had to reread them a few times to get what she was saying and it slowed down my reading of the book, which I didn’t care for. I think the pacing of the book is pretty good. It’s overall a very short novel, and yet the story doesn’t feel rushed. Almost the opposite – until about the middle of the story, I wasn’t really feeling any sense of what the ultimate conflict would be. Much of the first half of the story is setting up the current world, Jean’s world as a newly made housewife, how her kids are reacting to this new world, and her flashbacks to various times that Jackie pointed out that Jean was making terrible decisions in her life (honestly, it was hard to see how they were friends when they were so, so different and Jackie spent most of her time telling Jean what she was doing wrong). Once the main conflict is revealed, things really start happening and the rest of the book is fast paced. It’s wrapped up rather swiftly, almost too swiftly, I feel, and the ending is decidedly too “wrapped up in a pretty bow” for my taste.

My overall thoughts are that this book, whose premise was so intriguing to me, didn’t go far enough to match my expectations. I wanted it to be so much more than it was. In some ways, it felt like Dalcher was trying to write a “Handmaid’s Tale” read-alike, but Jean just cannot live up to the standard of Offred. The story is too short and doesn’t really explore the world too much. Like with “Handmaid’s Tale,” Jean has little interaction with the resistance, in fact she didn’t even realize there could be one, and so much of the story is focused on Jean’s own reception of and reaction to the Pure Movement. Since I didn’t care for Jean, I cared little for her comments or feelings on the whole situation and so the book was really just me trying to figure out how this movement would be brought down, or if it even would be. So, would I recommend it? Yes, to those who like reading dystopias or are interested in feminist literature. But otherwise, I’d say people could pass on it and they wouldn’t be missing much.

I have recommended this book to everyone I meet. It left me speechless, no pun intended, and horrified. You know, it wouldn't surprise me to turn on a news channel one night and see the beginning of this. I think this is a must-read and it is most certainly timely.

This was a difficult read because it felt so real!

I was immediately pulled into the concept of the story from the blurb. As I started to read, parts of the story were difficult to follow, but the overall concept was effective: this is a very real, very terrifiying, concept.

The description of this book got my attention right off the bat. Women who can only speak a limited amount of words a day. Reminds me of what society was like for women before they could vote or have a say on anything. This book is smart and scary at the same time. Imaginative and quick. I loved it!

When I heard the concept of this book, I was ready to read it immediately, although it didn't quite go where I thought it would, I still enjoyed it. The part that I had heard before going in was that women were literally being silenced by wearing a contraption on their wrists and it would shock them if they went above a certain word count. Yes, this is in the book and what a concept, but the book goes somewhere I wasn't expecting.

The book focuses on Dr. Jean McClellan who was close to discovering something that would help reverse a brain injury in the Wernicke's area of the brain that had people talking in gibberish, but she was halted by the new regime. First let me say that this book made me do some googling and I was excited and surprised to see that this area is truth and does impact one's ability to compute and understand language. I love that at the heart of this crazy story was truth. The focus of the book was her discovery and how it could impact society in a possibly negative way.

Although I was disappointed that the contraption and the literal silencing of women wasn't the complete main focus, the thing that hit me hardest was seeing this female doctor raise both genders and be limited in her words. I think the family scenes really made me think about how any gender would be limited if they were limited to an amount of words per day. I know we can all joke that women speak more, but this book made me think about how many words EACH of us says in a day and if we had to limit them how that would impact us on the job, at home and in all of our relationships.

I love when a book makes me think and this one did and is still making me wonder about things. I hope that Christina Dalcher has another book in this vein up her sleeve!