Title: Vox
Author: Christina Dalcher
Genre: Dystopian
Publisher: Berkley, Penguin Random House
Publication Date: 2018
Format: Hardcover
Length: 326 pages

Read if you like: female rage, contemporary dystopian setting, The Handmaid’s Tale, the power of language, first person narration

Rating:

I picked up Vox at a used book sale because the premise was so fascinating that it immediately hooked me in. Dalcher predicates her story on a United States ruled by powerful, religious men who believe the only meaningful way forward for the country is to silence women. It immediately makes you think of the depressing and oppressive state designed in dystopian classics such as The Handmaid’s Tale, but with eerie contemporary connections that are equal parts infuriating and unnerving.

The book was a quick whirlwind of rage-inducing scenarios that had my heart pumping and my brain furious. Dalcher managed to pull a lot of emotions out of me because honestly, I was hate-reading through most of the book, so enraged by the concept that I simply couldn’t put it down.

I would have liked to have seen a little more world-building in the book, but overall, it evoked so much emotion from me that I still felt it was a thoroughly entertaining read. If you’re looking for a heart-pumping, anger-inducing dystopian read, I’d recommend giving this one a try.

The Book: Vox by Christina Dalcher

In Vox, Dr. Jean McClellan, a former linguistics professor and researcher, is forced to give up her career, her research, and any autonomy she has when a new United States government ruled by evangelical religious men deems that allowing women to have any role other than a homemaker and offspring producer is what’s ruining America. They slap bracelets on every woman and girl in the country that restrict them from speaking more than 100 words a day, lest they receive a jolt of electricity that progressively gets stronger and stronger until it electrocutes enough to kill.

Before this new government, Jean had been doing ground-breaking research on reversing the effects of aphasia, a condition that prevents sufferers from being able to process language and speak. When the new government calls on Jean to resume her research, she knows that something more sinister must be afoot, and between her and her colleagues, they’ll have a very limited time to determine how far they’re willing to go to prevent the existing government from eradicating the voices of women.

The Review

I don’t read a ton of thrillers, and Vox reminded me why: I spent the overwhelming majority of this book feeling either immense rage or stress.

Dalcher has a talent for eliciting emotion from the reader. From the very first chapter, I felt keenly attuned to Jean’s plight, to the everyday suffering and oppression that she was forced to endure. Whether it was about her now subservient role to a husband who seemed to be a yes man for the reigning government, or her powerlessness over her sons, one of whom is of the perfect age to fall victim to the bullshit that the government is shovelling down his throat, you feel the helplessness that Jean feels and the rage that it induces. The more outraged Jean becomes, the more the men around her determine that she’s the archetype of the hysterical woman and reject her concerns. It’s a tale as old as time, and it never gets less infuriating to me.

I appreciated Dalcher’s character work. Most of the characters were beautifully flawed and layered and were grappling with the situation through the lens of their own demons. She made it easy to love or hate them at first glance and then had you questioning that interpretation rather quickly as both they and the plot evolved. I appreciated that I wasn’t quite sure where anyone’s motivations were until closer to the end.

The only issue I had with this book is that while it elicited a significant degree of emotion, I did feel like the world-building and setting establishment was lacking. Dalcher repeatedly referenced that the US had fallen into this dystopian setting within a year, and while one of the key themes was that this type of terrifying state could appear if people choose not to speak up against tyranny, the timeframe felt unrealistic to me without more detail. Any descriptions of the actual fall were vague and general, and I felt like the fallout economically and socially should have been much more severe. I feel like had the plot not been set in the US, it would have been more believable as a dystopian novel because the audience would have had so much less context about the setting that wasn’t explicitly addressed.

If dystopian stories like The Handmaid’s Tale are of interest to you, Vox may be a solid read. I found it quick, entertaining, and thrilling, and I don’t think I’ve felt so much rage reading a book in a long time. It was definitely a premise that’s likely to stick with me.