This is a difficult novel to read for a woman. It deals with an America not too far in the future from today, where women are forced to wear devices that only allow them 100 words a day before being hit with an electric shock. Reading is banned. Working is banned. Their assets and their whole persons belong to their husbands. Queer people are interned in labour camps. It is absolutely horrible to read about, for the sole reason that it's incredibly easy to see how this could be reality very soon.

The actual plot, I found a little bit dry. It has overtones of the kind of 'literary fiction' produced by middle-aged white males, about the trials of professorship and how life-affirming it is when you start an affair with a much hotter person. I was more interested in the social interactions of the characters than the main plot, especially when it started to get kind of action-filmy at the end (with a race to use a sci-fi injection to restore/remove language capabilities. I also found the ending rather fairy-tale and pat.

However, Dalcher does a great job of keeping the menace of the misogynistic society bubbling quietly under every single thought and action that our main character has. I found myself getting angry several times, especially as she interacted with her eldest son, who is soaking up the indoctrination in a textbook way. As I say, it's a difficult read if you are a woman, because we are constantly fighting these tiny aggressions, desperate to stop the larger hatred behind them. I can't say I enjoyed this book, because it frightened and enraged me, but I thought it was very good, and very important.

Wow -I really enjoyed this read- was totally gripped by it- read on holiday over a day and the family started to get annoyed by my lack of participation in anything other than reading! Only took a few pages to get stuck in, and I was hooked. I've never actually thought about what life must be like with very limited communication with others- still thinking now about how I would manage only being allowed to speak 100 words a day. I really enjoyed all the relationships in this book - from husband, lover, friend , neighbour and mother- but the loviest relationships for me was between the main character Jean and her young daughter, I would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys fast paced, intriguing read.

While the concept is interesting and there is a lot to discuss, making it a great choice for book clubs, I do think that it falls down a little as a novel because of structural issues.

The premise is straight-forward: White Christian Conservative men come to power and oppress those who might oppose them. Women must wear a word counter that shocks them if they speak over 100 words a day. LGBT people are imprisoned unless they choose heterosexuality. Premarital sex and extramarital sex have heavy consequences for women, and birth control is also banned. Women cannot even read, write, collect mail etc and there are cameras everywhere to keep them in check.

The execution however did not quite live up to this premise. The resolutions felt a little too neat and tidy, and at times it did drag for me. I did very much enjoy the focus on what was happening right now instead of the build up because it is horrifying to watch children absorb such heinous ideas and adapt to these rules as if it's nothing.

On a personal level I found the main characters frustrating because of their lack of outcry when everything began to change, as shown through flashbacks, but it's important to show that most people would not be marching in the streets. They would be like Jean. Disbelieving that they live in a world that would really be on such a tract, appalled but not really thinking that these awful things would happen to them, not knowing how to or not feeling empowered enough to do anything about it until it's too late. We like to think that we would notice the signs and act against them, but history shows that most people do not. They see evil and turn away, pretending that it isn't there because it isn't directly effecting them.

This is a book about What Ifs? What if these hard Right Christian Conservatives came to power? What if women were oppressed to this degree? What if it happened to you, and you had to watch your children be a part of this society and absorb these ideals as if it were normal? This is about the importance of speech and the power that your voice can have, and how important it is to not allow that to be taken from you.

Vox is a great debut, it explores powerful themes and is ideal for fans of The Handmaid's Tale and/or The Power. I think if you are looking for more dystopian feminist fiction then it is definitely work checking out. I just hope that this is a launch platform for Dalcher to go on and grow even stronger as a writer, and continue exploring important ideas and themes like this.

An original idea ...something really different. The USA has turned into a patriarchal society with women no longer allowed to work, watch normal TV or media, read books or speak more than 100 words per day! The novel focuses on mainly one woman and her family and friends. One of my favourite characters is Sophie, the 6 year old daughter. I won't give away anymore here but this book makes you think and challenges us to review the way our world is progressing, or not.....

I had heard and read lots about this book online and I was a bit doubtful about it at first but decided I would give it ago. I am so glad that I did as I absolutely loved it.
Imagine waking up one morning and finding out that all women and girls are not allowed to say more than a 100 words a day, and if you do you will be punished by being given an electronic shock. Every word you say is monitored by a little device “counter” that is worn on the wrist of every female and once you reach 100 the very same device will send a shock through your body.

The book is very gripping and thought-provoking. It really makes you think about how this is all too possible in the near future, and how important for women to fight for equal rights.

Christina Dalcher has written this book well, and comparing the writing style to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale I thought VOX was much more easier to read and the story flowed much better. She has good strong characters throughout the book. I have read a few good books so far this year, but this one is up there with some of my favourites for this year.

A must read for dystopian fiction fans, and even if you're not a fan still a must read.

I would like to thank NetGalley and HQ for my Advance Digital Review Copy in return for an Unbiased review.

Strange fitbit like devices have been issued to every woman and girl in America. They will be shocked if they go over their 100 word limit. Mans rules the land, until the president falls sick and the only person who can help him is Dr Jean and her research.

Women are silenced, gay people are put in concentration camps to "convert" them. Anyone disobeying the rules in publicly shamed on TV in front of everyone.

I loved this book! In a world where this situation could quite frankly be a possibility. I find myself imagining what my life would be like with only 100 words to speak.

This is a fantastic non-stop read. 5 stars for me. Everyone should read this book. If you don't get even a little bit angry then you are part of the problem.

Wow.
Life reduced to 100 words daily as a female. No books. Horrendous.

A patriarchal society under an autocratic president where group think is evident and women delisted. Not too far from modern day America (I think that’s the point)

A valuable lesson in speaking up for those who cannot speak up for themselves and to stand up for what you believe in.

A little terrifying and frighteningly realistic, Vox is a parable for modern times. It lost its way several times but all came together nicely at the end albeit a little rushed

4.5* thought-provoking

I really wasn't sure what to expect with this book, I love dystopian books but haven't read such an original one for ages, I loved it.The main character and many other people in the book really resonated with me,I was rooting for them,this seemed especially in today's political climate and with unlikely presidents etc to be all too possible.I thought the author had a great imagination but made it all seem very realistic.I was really caught up in the book and I couldn't read it fast enough.Imagine being restricted to 100 words a day and punished, imagine having your job and rights stripped while any man or boy has unlimited rights and can lord it over you..... Not a world I would want to be in but it was scary and realistic ,it didn't seem that far away .Imagine being persecuted and forbidden to express your sexuality, oh wait a minute that happens in some places already doesn't it.. and seems to be the way it is going in supposedly more civilized countries like the USA for example .This book is bang on point and although it shares a vision of a truly horrific future it is one that wouldn't surprise in some ways .thankfully this is not the world we live in and I am able to read and enjoy this book.I will definitely be looking out for more books by this author ,and would like to thank the Publishers and Netgalley for this ARC.

Dr Jean McLellan is an eminent neuroscientist. She has her personal flaws but in her career she was at the forefront of studies into the brain and how it’s impacted by illness. I use the past tense because when we meet Dr Jean her role has been drastically reduced, like that of many women.
In this America women are no longer part of the work force. Their role is to nurture children and keep the home. Their rights have - as we learn in bits and pieces - been eradicated. This alone was enough to anger me, but the fact their voices are taken away was jaw-dropping. Each female wears a wrist counter. It allows them 100 words a day. 100!
The fact that nobody openly questions this tells us just how different things are in this imagined world.
The premise of this story was absorbing. I particularly liked the way we learn how such a situation came to pass. Like so many periods in history where such things happen it’s always easy to look on in hindsight and question the actions of those alive at the time. Sadly, Dalcher paints all too vivid a picture of how this came to pass.
The story was chilling as we come to understand just what is at risk here. A timely reminder of the need to question decisions made by those in power.
Thank you NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication.

This book should, and I predict will, stand along side Handmaid’s Tale, 1984 and Only Ever Yours for its speculative commentary on society.
The book’s narrative will have anyone reading bringing it up in comversation; it’s haunting premise will ensure everyone wants to pass on the book in some attempt at prempting it’s possible outcome.
The exploration of the impact of religion is quite interesting and something I personally wanted to know more. Had the narrative not focused on the one person, I’d have loved to have see the leader’s rise to power; which is a testament to the writer and her ability to build a world with potential beyond the one book.

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.