In the dystopian America of Christina Dalcher’s Vox, women have been stripped of their rights by the fundamentalist government. They are not allowed to have jobs, and all women and girls have been fitted with a wristband that shows them how many words they are allowed to say that day. The maximum number of words allowed a day is 100 and if they exceed that, they are given electronic shocks via the band.
Dr Jean McClellan, once a leading neurolinguist specialising in brain aphasia (the loss of language), now finds herself at home and not in control of anything. Her children: 16 year old Steven, 11 year old twin boys Sam and Leo and 6 year old Sonia are in school for most of the day. The boys get taught everything, whereas Sonia is not even taught to read and write. All they teach her in school is to use as few words as humanly possible in a day.
When the president’s brother has a brain injury that leaves him incapable of speech, the government reinstates Jean to her former job. Her goal this time is to find a cure for the president’s brother as soon as possible. Then she discovers that the president wants to reverse engineer the serum so the government can induce aphasia in people. The team fights to make it impossible for the government to do so.
Meanwhile, Jean reprises her affair with Lorenzo, her colleague from Italy. When she realises she’s pregnant, she knows she has to leave the country. But can she leave her husband Patrick and her other 4 children, especially Sonia, behind?
It’s scary how some dystopian novels hit so close to home. The route the USA is taking at the moment makes this book not feel remotely far fetched. In fact, Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale seem within reach, and it scares the bejesus out of me as I have many female friends in the US.
This book is amazing though, and I highly recommend it!
Read for the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge 2026
Prompt 44: A Dystopian Novel
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
