Wow! Just wow! I really dont know what to say about this book! I mean it's horrifying and such a strong point for a book, but it was totally amazing. It started out as just a horrible way of living... But having a look behind the scenes of the personal aspects was eye opening... I honestly don't know what I'd do if this was something that actually happened.

So on the plus sides it had such strong female characters and such an intense storyline it pulled me in straight away and I could barely put the book down.

On the negative side I found it a little hard sometimes to tell the difference between the present and the past... There didn't seem to be anything to mark it, so it did get a little weird sometimes and I had to reread bits to make sure it made sense

I would definitely recommend this to everyone it was just so awesome!

Years ago I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and enjoyed it as a great story of a fictional world. Then along comes the TV series which painted the book into more colours than I had imagined, now frightening and real.

Now there's Vox which will inevitably be compared as the outline is familiar. But I think this book is even more extreme in so many ways. How could we live without words, without everything that they convey? How could women let this happen in the first place? How can a well educated, respected person be crushed into such a small example of themselves? Bleak and depressing to the extreme.

The second part of the book was much more fiesty, gave me hope while reminding me that yes, this is reality already in many societies and more and more of us are becoming oppressed. If a book can take you on a roller-coaster like that then it deserves to be read. Doesn't it?

Imagine a modern world where women and girls are only allowed to speak 100 words per day and suffer dire consequences if they disobey. No work, no rights – and people disappear overnight. Vox issues a stark warning to those who do not use their voices to stand up for their beliefs.

The book is intense, terrifying, and anger-inducing. My only criticism is that the intensity waned in the last third and lost its golden thread of being a social commentary.

I thoroughly enjoyed it but would’ve liked to have seen the thread maintained throughout. Highly recommended for book clubs.

(Word count – 100. Phew.)

Many thanks to NetGalley and HQ Stories for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Vox really make you think, its quite terrifying how easily society was able change. I really enjoyed the first half of the novel, but at some point towards the middle it seemed to change, the tone of the book altered and the plot became slightly confusing, leading to what appears to be a very rushed and abrupt ending.

A gripping, compelling read, Vox imagines a dystopian future, not that far away, where women are the inferior species; they have been removed from employment, cannot hold bank accounts or passports, or even open the mail. Women are only allowed to utter 100 words a day, strictly monitored by a wrist-worn counter which administers powerful shocks if the limit is infringed.

Dr Jean McClellan is summoned back to work and temporarily excused from these rules in order to employ her neurolinguistic skills on creating a cure for the President's brother's aphasia. But is this the real reason? What will the impacts be of her return to work? Can anyone fight back?

Packed with interesting characters and relationships, Vox has every potential to become a bestseller. Highly, highly recommended.

This is one thought provoking novel.

The idea that I could only speak 100 words per day is scary, I mean I use up that many words just trying to get my kids out of bed in the morning.

I was really enjoying this story, the style, the pace, even the sub-stories that came along with it but in the end I felt let down.

After the first half it became rushed, too eager to reach an ending.

It felt like there was so much more that could have been said, if anything it could have been elongated at spread over 2 books because I was left wanting more detail, more drama.

There was a really good, steady build and then it was like a rollercoaster, over too fast.

Vox as a whole was good, the concept was well thought out and it is a situation that with the way our world is going could be entirely possible.

Just for me over too soon.

“The average person speaks 16,000 words per day. But what if women were limited to just 100?”

This book is about a dystopian society set in the near future in the united states. In this society females can only say a maximum of one hundred words a day without being punished, through electric shocks. They wear what's known as bracelets or counters on their wrists which count their daily words.

The story follows Jean and her family which consists of her husband, Patrick, her three sons, and her young daughter Sonia, who also has to live saying only one hundred words a day.

This Book has been compared to the handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood while I can certainly see the similarities, Vox just feels so much real! And not in a good way, more like “wow this could ACTUALLY happen”

Dalcher explains the world perfectly through the use of flashbacks and current time, you can really see how the world came to silence the women, and you can see how the dictators like the president and religious figures Plan to control the entire population. You can clearly see this in the Character of Steven, first it's in textbooks, then an elite club that only “pure” people can join. And also, a paid incentive to produce more pure children at a young age, with a free college education (males only) and $10,000 if you are married before the age of 18, as well as $10,000 for every child you produce, this is how they planned to create a “pure” race in only one generation. This Is pretty much exactly what occurred in Nazi Germany, and this quote sums it up pretty well.

“Maybe this is how it happened in Germany with the Nazis, in Bosnia, with the Serbs, in Rwanda with the Hutus. I’ve often wondered about that, how kids can turn into monsters, how they can learn that killing is right and oppression is just, how in one single generation the world can change on its axis into a place that is unrecognizable. ”

As mentioned Before, women's rights are completely stripped away, with everything educational taken away from them even books, (except the bible) they are not allowed to send letters, receive the post (this has to be done by males over 18) everything about this book made me feel angry but also made me think about what this world could become with ease.

I would highly recommend this book, I gave it a five star rating with ease!

Thank you to HQ stories, Netgalley and Christina Dalcher, for the opportunity to read this book before the release date which is august the 23rd in the UK and august the 21st in the USA



TW- homophobia, abuse

This book hits all the right buttons for me - it is dystopian, scary, feminist, medical, technological - also beautifully crafted and an excellent thriller. I wish I could erase the last 24 hours from my memory so that I could have the pleasure of reading it fresh again!

The story is an extrapolation of an all-too-realistic situation. A 'joke' president (a morally corrupt and intellectually vacuous bully put in power by right-wing religious fanatics), and the silencing of all opposition by legal, social conditioning and eventually technological means. Women and girls are cruelly and permanently silenced by a wrist band which delivers an electric shock if they exceed their allotted 100 word-a-day spoken limit. Sign language is banned, as is reading and writing for all women, because "their place is in the home", so they also don't need passports, bank accounts or jobs. Cameras are everywhere; boys and girls are kept separate from a young age (shades of ISIS / Taliban) to be systematically indoctrinated; gays are put in concentration camps and even minor criminals are executed. In this horrific dystopian nightmare naturally we have a resistance movement, but it is not clear for some time who is involved and what they are doing.

Social cohesion within this society has broken down for obvious reasons. One scene which particularly stuck in my memory was the description of a dinner party. They ate, the men drank and tried to make small talk for an hour or so while their wives stared mournfully and silently into their plates. Then they all left because they were bored, frustrated and angry.

The only criticism I have of this book is regarding what happens in the White House near the end - I'd have liked to hear this in detail from the point of view of someone who was actually there, and not remote / after the fact.

As other reviewers have said, this is reminiscent of "The Handmaid's Tale" and "1984", with their themes of subjugation and silencing of opposition. It is also new and refreshing. I'm very glad I read it and it will stay with me for a long time.

Thank goodness this is fiction. The scary thing is though that many parts of it are not, and it might not be that far fetched when you think about it.  Very apt and timely for today;s world sadly and not just in the USA but in every country around the world.Countries where women can't vote, drive, or those which have few women in high level positions...

There is a lot to liken this novel to The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 with the idea that there are controls on women  and restrictions of freedom and freedom of speech. Women are fitted with fitbits/Apple style watches which give them an elecgric shock if they speak more than 100 words a day. Reading and using your hands to speak is not allowed. Not sure what happens to deaf women in this society but I can imagine. The punishment is awful and you get an insight into what it 's like when a mother discovers her son has joined the Pure movement - those who rule and enforce the laws. The idea is to reboot society back to a time where men ruled, when life in their eyes was simpler and less complicated. Men are the natural leaders and women belong in the kitchen.

I want to read more however as the book starts when this regime is well underway and I didn't get the sense that women were rising up and resisting like I think I would have done. I would love to read about more history about how this came to be and how it was created. Still, like with the rise of dictators and regimes around the world who like to brainwash people, can we ever really be sure how anything mad like this starts?

I'm going to be thinking of this for a while. And I'm taking off my fitbit for a start.

This dystopia is scary, devastating and feels all too possible. The thought of only being allowed to use 100 words of language as a woman with the penalty of being shocked by an arm bracelet if you go over your quota is horrific and provoked feelings of outrage and anger. The story demonstrates the lengths a mother (and in fact a father) will go to to protect their children. The way those in same sex relationships or indeed any female who has sex before marriage, or speaks up too much or who isn't obeying the rules imposed by US leaders, are treated is disgusting and nausea inducing. I was definitely gripped by this story and it will stay with me for a long while, I had a severe book hangover with this one.

I have read some really wonderful books this year but 'Vox' has topped them all.
It's not too hard to envisage a world where America has a president who is seen a joke by the rest of the world,yet manages to systematically take away the rights of the female population.
It starts slowly with the focus on the main character,Jean, a well regarded scientist who was advancing disoveries into cures for a particular strain of dementia. Since the 'Pure' movement,however,women have been stripped of their jobs,their roles and their words.
Women ,and gay people have been held accountable for the ills of society and in a attempt to return it to a time when women knew their place and being gay was considered an abomination,the president has eroded their rights and gained the backing of American men and female handmaidens .
Inevitable comparison with the 'Handmaid's Tale' aside,it is sadly all too plausible to buy into the future reality that Christina Dalcher depicts. Gay people are forced into work camps and to share cells with the opposite sex until they 'see sense'.
Women and girls are made to wear wristbands that count off every word they speak and after 100 words are gone,they cannot speak until sun rise on the next day.
If they do,the punishment is instant and brutal.
So there is no more reading,writing,buying of envelopes,opening the postbox,magazines,nothing that encourages a woman to think freely.
Girls are seperated from.boys as there is no need to educate them beyond preparing them for wifely duties and motherhood. They cannot leave the country as their passports are invalid. Women and girls are nothing more than commodities to be done with as men wish.
Until the President's brother has a terrible skiing accident that results in the particular dysphasia that she had been experimenting on.
Suddenly the chance to raise a voice is in Jean's power.
This is a prescient and timely book that is sadly all too believable.
Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

I enjoyed this - it kept me up reading late into the night. I was surprised that the finale seemed to take place 'off stage', as I would have liked to see those events happen directly, rather than have another character relay them. Still, really interesting, and I'll look out for more from Christina Dalcher.

This book was a complete emotional rollercoaster for me and sometimes a bit hard to read in places. I thought that the dystopian world was well crafted and terrifyingly believable! Dalcher's description of how America came to become a society where women can only speak 100 words a day is very believable and works almost as a warning about political apathy.

If you enjoy dystopian fiction then this is definitely the book for you!

I was interested in the idea behind this novel and curious to read about an America where women are prevented from speaking more than one hundred words per day. The author wrote convincingly about a world in which women have become repressed not only in society but within their own families. Even Jean's husband and male children have developed a lack of respect for women and girls.

Vox was an uncomfortable read in places, and showed how quickly a group in society might be persecuted.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this novel.

Wow. I absolutely devoured this book. Word by word, it dripped into my mind, filling me with anger, terror. Just like The Handmaid's Tale, like Black Mirror, Vox is a carefully crafted, terrifying dystopian set just half a second in the future. Built around real events - politicians restricting abortion, the extreme right spreading pure religious fury - with an added touch of fear, Vox is an important, horrifying tale so very applicable to today's world.

This book had a very chilling premise which appealed to me as a lover of dystopian fiction generally and Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale', to which it has been compared, in particular. Focusing on a world where women have been stripped of their rights by a fundamentalist Christian take-over of government, Dalcher describes life for women who can no longer read and write, no longer work, whose money now belongs to their husbands (or nearest male relative if single) and who are limited to 100 words a day, enforced by bracelets which are programmed to recognise the voice of the wearer and deliver an electric shock for each infraction.

I found the book quite gripping and finished it in one sitting but I came away feeling that it had failed to deliver its true promise. Main character Jean was a somewhat unsympathetic character and I didn't really take to her. I wanted her to succeed more because of the implications for wider society if she didn't than for any good will towards her personally. There was also an over-abundance of medical terminology which detached me from the plot somewhat. Whilst I recognise that an element of this was necessary to the storyline, I felt it could have been handled better (see 'The Martian' for an example of a book that includes enough science to be believable but without turning off readers who didn't study science past high school).

Ultimately, the book doesn't live up to the comparisons which have been made to the work of authors such as Atwood, and perhaps I would have felt more generously toward it had I not had such high expectations going in, but it is still worth a look if dystopian fiction is your thing. I certainly feel the portrayal of how easily an extreme administration can take over so comprehensively is realistic and the paraphrased words of Edmund Burke regarding evil triumphing when good men do nothing serves as a warning regarding the current political climate in a number of countries around the world.

I don't think I was quite as into this one as some of my peers, but it was a clever, thought provoking speculative tale set in a world where women are only allowed 100 words per day and are in other ways suppressed. The writing was beautiful and allowed for the exploration of some currently relevant themes.

My very subjective personal issue was the way the premise sat - if it had been purely speculative, a world where this just "was" I would probably have related to it a little more, or if it was clearly set in a place where, as we know is true, women are still under the rule of men. As it is, this state of affairs comes to pass quietly and quickly during a change in political views and an upsurge of religious doctrine in the modern world. I just couldn't get my head around that working - I suppose it's possible but I think of all the women I know who would literally blow the world up rather than submit, plus all the men who would do the same - we have moved on. Is it possible? Yes. But yeah all I had throughout the read was a vision of warrior women in helicopters blowing up the White house then saying "enough of your shite already" before going back to reading their books (which they can't have in this world Christina Dalcher has created)

That aside though, this novel is an intelligent one, that will surely garner much discussion. Plus I really enjoyed it and in the end that's the main thing.

Recommended.

With an intriguing premise and clever writing I found this to be an incredibly engaging and addictive read.

Despite being bombarded with promotion for this book all over social media it was only when I read the premise that I decided it was one I had to read. I was suspicious of all of the comparisons to the Handmaids Tale (I'm suspicious of all comparisons though) but there are actually a lot of similarities in the world the author creates. Due to a change in political power and the influence of religion, America is seeking a return to "traditional values" and family roles. The men are educated, given jobs, bring home money and make all of the decisions and the women are there to support them by keeping house.

Where it diverges however, and what fascinated me, is that this is enforced by limiting women's access to words and language. Every woman/girl is given an allocation of 100 words a day and is fitted with a counter to ensure they stick to it. They are not permitted to read or write, have no access to computers, mobile phones or tablets and there are cameras set up to ensure they don't communicate by any other means. It's extreme but it really intrigued me. How would a loss of language affect your life, how would it affect your relationships and the dynamics within a family?

Through a number of situations and little nuggets of detail the author does an incredible job of portraying this world in a way which feels very real and easy to imagine. It's clear that a lot of thought has gone into it in the way that the author answers almost all of the questions I had about what kind of impact this would have on the day to day life of different types of people. There are maybe a few too many coincidences and it lacks a little subtlety at times (it's downright blunt on occasion) but it gets the message across.

I liked that the main character Jean (Gianna) was a former professor of neurolinguistics and the opportunities this gave for bringing a lot of the science into the story to give it a bit more depth and direction. Jean herself is a complicated character and I thought it was interesting how flawed the author made her. There was a lot I could relate to and empathise with but there were aspects of her behavior I just didn't like or agree with. I also thought it was good the way the author brought in different and very diverse characters to illustrate the impact this society was having on them.

For a debut this is a pretty impressive book. I did have some minor quibbles with some of the writing, I found the alternate scenarios irritating and there were a couple of jumps which confused me but otherwise it was very readable. The pacing was pretty much spot on and I loved how the author managed to work in the events leading up to the current position without info dumping.

Overall this was a truly engaging read with a fascinating premise. One I'd definitely recommend.

I can't put into words just how much I loved this book. When it was recommended to me by a friend to request, I was a little doubtful that this would live up to The Handmaid's Tale, a book that was compared to this. In fact, I couldn't have been more wrong. It completely surpassed my expectations. Not one to post spoilers, but this is an absolutely wonderful book.

Don't be put off by the science that appears in the books, by the way. It's there to serve a plot, but you don't miss out by not understanding it.

Thank you for the arc and apology it’s taken awhile to write this review.

The concept of this story, that in the future, the female daily word quota is reduced to 100 is actually incredibly “believable” and “intriguing” and it drawled my intention to read more.

It makes for a hard read, not in writing style. But just the thought of loosing the loss of voice and the consequences of doing so and over spilling the quota.

It caught and maintained my attention. Especially as I’m a chatty person.