Five-star review of Vox by Christina Dalcher
This is a book I’d recommend not only to women
but also to men. It’s a cautionary story about a near-future United States
where women and girls are limited to 100 words a day. A band on their wrists
shocks them for each word over that and after a certain number of infractions
they are brought before Reverend Carl Corbin, instigator for the Pure Movement,
the quasi-religious and political push to limit women’s rights. Women can’t
have a bank account, hold a job, even read a book. The first-person
protagonist, Jean McClellan, a neurolinguist, wasn't allowed to finish her work
on a serum to reverse aphasia. She’s now a stay-at-home mother to four
children, the youngest a girl. Mounting motivations for Jean to do something
include an adulterous affair with a former colleague, my least favorite part of
the story. Her fears for her daughter’s future and her own mother’s illness in
Italy are more acceptable reasons. There were a couple of holes in the plot but
were supplanted by the message about not standing by and watching as these
things creep up on us.
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