“Think about waking up one morning and finding you don’t have a voice in anything.”
Sometimes I receive bookmails and I’m excited for them because I know the books, and once in a while, I receive the most random bookmail that I never heard of. So, It can go both ways: whether I hate it or love it. Fortunately, this book I’m about to review, I absolutely loved devouring every single page of it.
I can’t be grateful enough for this surprise from Penguin Random House because it has become one of my favourites of 2018 so far.
Think The Handmaid’s Tale but instead, if you are a woman or a girl, you are only allowed to speak 100 words per day. If you go beyond the quota, the bracelet around your wrists will inflict an electric shock through your whole body. The story follows Jean, a doctor specialized in cognitive language or even more specific, she studies the Wernicke’s area. The region of the brain that allows us to understand the meaning of words. She witnessed her normal daily lives of doing conferences, speaking as she wants to complete alienation and restraining to only 100 words a day. Even worse, she witnesses her husband and sons becoming more power hungry and start believing what society dictates them about women.
This book has everything I love in a dystopia.
A strong female protagonist. She’s fierce and smart. A forty-four years old doctor who is not perfect but she’s driven by a motive to not only save her daughter from this world but other women as well. Very mature but also struggling with her every day lives. As a maternal instinct to love her children, she has some problems with her eldest son Steven who seems to be completely brainwashed by the the new doctrine. I love seeing her perspective of not only a mother but as a woman of science.
The importance of words. I have grown up loving words more than anything else. The more I studied neurosciences and the cognitive science, I realized how even more important words are. My joy when this book is all about that. A cognitive neuroscientist studying the main language region of the brain. Boum. Here you have the science and the love for words in the same place and setting.
The overall character development. Not only the protagonist but all the characters surrounding her as well. From her children to her husband to her colleagues, they will all go through an intense evolution. Very different development but no character is forsaken.
The psychology themes are omnipresent. The author did a brilliant work in researching but also in mentioning between the lines two of the biggest psychology experiments : The Stanford Experiment and The Milgram Experiment.Both of these experiments are about power and what happened when you get to be in the position to have control over other people. I love the way she mentioned them without EVER written bluntly the experiments. You can just guess it with the interpersonal interactions and the technologies from this world.
Lastly, the terrifying feeling that all of this can happen. This was not supposed to be a horror novel but the harsh and crude realism make me want to pause my reading several times before continuing. With everything that’s been going on in the world, these settings are not impossible. Not anymore.
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
RECOMMENDED FOR:
People who loved The Handmaid’s Tale but would enjoy a faster pace
People who wouldn’t take religious ideas too personal, it would defeat the purpose of this book. I come from a religious family so I know a lot of people who would find this book disturbing.
People who wouldn’t mind reading about science. I personally enjoy the medical parts but I know for some people it’s just flat boring.
P.S : Yes I’m back!! Sorry for the long hiatus I had some health problems as I mentioned in my old posts so I really wanted to take care of myself before going back to blogging. Thank you all for your patience 🙂
TITLE: VOX
TYPE: ARC
AUTHOR(S): CHRISTINA DALCHER
PUBLISHER: BERKLEY
FORMAT: PAPERBACK
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 21ST 2018
PAGES: 326
GENRE(S): SCI FI – DYSTOPIA
My Dark Theories 
Leave a reply to Christina Dalcher Cancel reply