Vox

What a story! That I hope NEVER comes true. Far worse, but less raunchy than1984 every bit as disturbing.What would you do?

Some of the critical reviews on this site gave me pause before downloading Vox, but I’ve always been intrigued by dystopian novels and, in this case, my curiosity outweighed my skepticism. The plot—that women wear monitoring bracelets that only allow them to speak 100 words a day before receiving electric shocks that increase in their intensity—was an original one. I’m glad my curiosity got the better of me. Contrary to the critics, I didn’t find this book to be heavy-handed politically. Politics play an integral part in any dystopian novel, and of course they will play one in a book in which there is a government conspiracy to subjugate and silence women, but the author is deft in balancing the political aspects with some fine storytelling, Strictly on its literary merits, the book is excellent and does justice to its clever plot.I did find Jean, the protagonist, a bit harsh at times and not always likable, especially in her dealings with her own family, but if the author’s intention was to create a realistic main character, warts and all, she succeeded. And Jean’s anger is certainly justified. I did find myself rooting for the character consistently, so her likability wasn’t much of an issue.A problem I did have was Jean’s relationship with her husband of 17 years, Patrick. She’s often contemptuous of him, especially in (constant) comparisons with her secret lover, Lorenzo. In the society in which Jean lives, adultery (or any fornication outside of marriage), at least for women, is a crime punishable by Heather-Prynne-like public mockery followed by complete silence and exile to a camp for so-called wayward women. So Jean is willing to risk quite a lot for this affair. In her comparisons, Patrick is always presented as weak, while Lorenzo, her guitar-strumming, brain-scientist, Romance-language, romance-novel of a lover, is presented as a savior/Superman. This is a real issue. First of all, in a book that is making a strong statement about female oppression at the hands of a chauvinistic society, I’m uncomfortable with such a one-dimensional idea of the ideal male role model. Second, fiery Jean becomes diminished by her constant reliance on this mythical strongman to bolster her. Third, I find the character of Patrick infinitely more relatable, realistic, and interesting than Lorenzo. Patrick is one of a number of decent men caught up in a toxic societal situation that he’s not really equipped to change (unless he’s willing to jeopardize himself and the family he loves).The Lorenzo character irks me in another way. Vox strives, mostly successfully, for a sense of realism. As in the grandfather of dystopian novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four, all the characters are constantly monitored by video cameras. With modern society’s surveillance capabilities, it’s even less of a leap to imagine this scenario now than it was when Orwell’s classic was first published in 1949. In Vox, the Pure people, a male-dominated movement that’s akin to our moral majority with an added dose of misogyny, has completely wrested power away from women and decent-but-passive men such as Patrick. The author peoples her novel with flawed characters who are sometimes unlikeable, such as Jean, Patrick, and their oldest child Steven, who’s pretty contemptible for much of the book. For a character such as Fabio—er, Lorenzo—to exist in this environment is jarring. The author, with her literary chops, had me expecting more of this book than to have it degenerate into a romantic fantasy. This type of device doesn’t turn me off because I’m a prude, but because I appreciate good, layered, believable literature. For a serious novelist, romantic fantasy amounts to nothing more than lazy plot resolution.Speaking of plot resolution, perhaps the book’s ending ties things up a bit too quickly and firmly—especially considering the bleakness of the author’s vision of this society—but we do see some character growth and the reader can take away some hope for everyone who lives in a society with a double standard of morality and a warped sense of what is considered decent.Despite the flaws of Vox, the work is compelling and enjoyable and has a strong, consistent political message that merits a solid 3-and-a-half stars (rounded up to 4) from this reader.

Pro: This book is an engaging, quick read. Its ending is a wonderful emotional release.Con: If you stand back and think about it for five minutes, you realize this author has no idea what she's writing about. Especially when it comes to technology.Let's start with that wristband that shocks a woman for speaking more than 100 words a day. As far as I can tell, it's a stand-alone piece with no wires nor large external batteries. It's made with current technology and is the size of, quote, "my old Apple watch." It has a mechanical lock. And based on what it does and doesn't pick up, it seems to have an audio sensor (microphone) but no biometric nor location tracking. I can't tell if it's connected to a mobile network.Which means there's no way this wristband could be packing more than a 5V smartphone battery. So after the first jolt, the wristband would need to completely recharge! Even those thick prison wristbands couldn't do more than a few jolts a day. Chatty women would mainly suffer a burn mark that gets callused over and numb with time.But even if we assume that the Pure movement recieved a vision from God about how to make an incredibly dense battery, the wristband still wouldn't work.When Sonia screamed in her sleep, why did Jean try to muffle her instead of the wristband? Chew gum, jam it in the microphone, done.And when Jean realized how painful the wristband could be, why didn't she wedge a few rubber bands between the wristband and her skin to absorb the shock? If she really wanted to be discreet about it, she could line the underside with rubber cement.And since its lock is mechanical, why hasn't lock-picking become a national pastime? I suspect that with enough time (which these newly unemployed women certainly have), the wristband could be unlocked with a paperclip.To summarize, this wristband could be foiled by chewing gum, rubber bands, or a paperclip.Heck, put a metal fork on it and you've got an expletive-fueled taser! Note: that doesn't actually happen in the book. The most creative any woman gets is an attempted suicide via electrocution by playing a taped loop of her voice. Which bolsters the sexist stereotype of "Men get mad, women get sad."Oh, and when a character does figure out how to remove the wristband, it's someone's husband! Because the author's feminist imagination can't extend to women manipulating their own machines. I've never met the author, but I suspect she's the sort of woman who gets spooked when her Apple watch shows an unexpected screen, and because she relies on the men in her life to fix her consumer electronics, she conflates technology with patriarchy.A third of the way into the book, Jean loses her wristband and is employed to create a serum that will be reverse engineered into a bioweapon. The serum is protein-based and injected directly into the brain to fix a specific injury. The Pure movement wants to reverse engineer it, put the resulting anti-serum in the water, and brain damage whole cities it doesn't like.Ignoring the impossibility of reverse-engineering anything overnight, there's also the simple fact that either way, this is a protein-based serum. And...most proteins can't cross the brain-blood barrier! So while this serum could work if injected directly into the brain (though I think ten minutes is optimistic), anyone who drinks it will just pee it out. So it's useless as the bioweapon the Pure movement want, or even the [spoiler but who cares?] assassination tool it becomes when poured in tea.The politics of this book are also inaccurate, but that's born out of a paranoid far-left national news narrative so I'll let it pass. Either you agree with it or think it's utter poppycock. I'll just note that if those wristbands were distributed by a fictionalized Trump administration, then they shouldn't work at all because you know they were made in China by the lowest bidder.

The cover likens Vox to A Handmaid's Tale. Sure, like Margaret Atwood's classic, it's set in a patriarchal dystopia. But it is far, far more thrilling, well-paced, and realistic. In fact, I was surprised that she wrote this in 2017, as it is has an all-too-close resemblance to the political climate in the US and, really, any country where an authoritarian impulse resides. Verisimilitude aside, the main character evolves wonderfully throughout the book. Told in the first person, Vox follows Jean, a dedicated mom and neurolinguist who regrets not listening to her outspoken grad school roommate. Her roommate's message, and the book's theme, boil down to an old axiom: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [wo]men to do nothing." Jean did nothing. But she's presented with a second chance, one that will involve nearly impossible choices. It's a brilliant evolution, a kind of belated coming of age. Yes, there are leaps of faith the reader must make: a serum that instantly cures Wernicke's syndrome, for instance. But that's why it's called science FICTION. Nonetheless, Dalcher, a linguist by trade, seems to know her way around the terrible possibilities of manipulating language. Here's to hoping she makes sequel.

Instantly connectable lead character. For those of us that love and strong feminism lead then VOX is a must. A strong female voice in a time of few words is a scarily feasible story but never underestimate the resistance and power to fight back.

I am a die-hard of dystopian literature and VOX got me hooked until the end. Imagine not being able to speak more than 100 words a day because you are a woman! You also cannot work, have a bank account, have a mobile phone. Being a woman becomes a sort of a curse. A fantastic book that makes us think about how far we have come and to appreciate more the things we take for granted.

Spannend und gut geschrieben

Excelente

A good book and an interesting point of view on the women’s future