Title: Vox

Author: Christina Dalcher

Publisher: Berkley 2018

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 336

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library; Monthly Theme

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than one hundred words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her.

Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words each day, but now women have only one hundred to make themselves heard.

For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

This is just the beginning...not the end.

I was intrigued by the set-up and the comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale. Unfortunately, what I read was a book trying way too hard to be relevant in our current political climate filled with unlikable characters and a ridiculous thriller style plot. Shoehorned in there is very surface level commentary about sexism, religion, politics, and science. And don’t get me started on Jean and Patrick’s relationship, their relationship to the children, and Jean and Lorenzo’s relationship. Just no. But what irked me the most was the timeline. This is all supposed to have happened in a few short years and then is undone in less than a year. Um no. I don’t buy it without some catastrophic event like a plague or war. Girly Book Club has once again disappointed me with their science fiction selection. We only get one a year and last year’s was terrible (American War) and this year’s choice is just as bad…

Next up on the TBR pile: