Blog Tour & Review – VOX by Christina Dalcher

Happy Monday! Let’s kick off the week with a blog tour 🙂

Thanks to Berkley Pub #PRHPartner for the free advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

VOX – Christina Dalcher (out now!)

Book Description:

Humans speak 16,000 words per day on average.

What if women were forbidden to speak more than 100?

What if the penalty for exceeding that quota was pain?

That’s the premise of this important, compulsively readable new novel.

In VOX, the change began with a renewed reverence for traditional gender roles. Amplified by the charismatic voice of Reverend Carl, the Pure Woman movement found sure footing in a divided country. With the Reverend delivering votes, a new president was elected. By the time their agenda became clear, each woman and girl had a word counter on her left wrist: 100 words a day, with increasingly intense shocks administered for every word over.

Dr. Jean McClellan was a neurolinguistics before she—and all women—were removed from the workforce. She spent most of her life leaving the protests and politics to others while she developed a cure for aphasia. But when the president’s brother suffers brain damage in a ski accident, Jean is recruited to continue her work in exchange for her—and her daughter’s—reprieve from the quota.

However, Jean soon discovers that her research is intended for something far more ambitious and sinister than she could have ever imagined.

A novel of riveting suspense and shattering questions, VOX is a story about language as the basis of our humanity—and what happens when that language is taken away. The book has already generated major media attention in Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, ABC News online, and more.

My Thoughts: 3/5 stars!

I know right now that I would not last very long in a world like this. I talk way too much and I can’t even fathom having to monitor that so closely – even with one of the counters. VOX by Christina Dalcher is set in the near future where women and girls can only speak 100 words per DAY. The average person speaks around 16,000 – 20,000 words per day.

I figured, oh you can cheat the system by writing notes to each other or emails. Nope. Reading and writing count towards your 100 word allotment and soon sign language could count against you as well. All apart of the new government decrees, women can no longer hold jobs and with the Pure movement gaining more traction that might not be the only adjustments and restrictions made.

Jean was once a renowned neurolinguist that was working on a cure for aphasia she was removed from her job and forced into silence. One day she is approached by the government to continue her research and find a cure to help the President’s sick brother. If she accepts she will have her counter removed and so will her six year old daughter, Sonia. With a deadline and incentive to finish as quickly as possible, Jean needs to figure out how to get her and her daughter as much time as they can before they are silenced again.

As I’m sure Dalcher intended, Jean’s oldest son Steven definitely got under my skin. Helping the cause and supporting the advancements in the counters (more penalties for swearing, etc) was infuriating especially because he was only hurting his little sister and it seemed like it was to spite his mother.

Overall, this was a very thought-provoking concept and I enjoyed the read. I’m still unsure of my full feelings on the book and I do recommend this to anyone looking for something unique! I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more from Dalcher in the future.

 

 

I’d love to know, what did you think of this one?

–Jess