WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED
Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just one hundred words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins.
Now the government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman.
Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and seventy million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.
For herself, her daughter, and for every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice. This is only the beginning…
[100 word limit reached]
WARNING: No plotline spoilers – just little details about the world revealed
I’d never really read books of this sub-genre of science fiction before. Not that I had anything against dystopian science fiction, but I view reading as a means to leave my world for a few hours and travel to a new one; better and more exciting. Dystopian novels just seemed to be depressing stories about what could happen if we continue the way we, as humans, are behaving. It wasn’t until last year I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and read books that normally wouldn’t advance the blurb reading stage of my book excursions. So I picked up The Power by Naomi Alderman, and I’ve never looked back.
So I had no reservations about picking up Christina Dalcher’s new book. Set in the near future, VOX follows the life of Dr. Jean McClellan, a neuro-linguist who has been reduced to only 100 words a day, along with the rest of the female population of America. With deadly wristbands on at all times to monitor how many words are spoken, and to administer volts of electricity when you go over the limit, a woman’s new role in life is to cook, clean, garden and mother their children, ‘Maybe you should go out and get another carton [of milk] then. It’s your job right?’ Extremely ‘traditional’ Christianity has taken the reigns in this new government, meaning women can no longer live alone and must move in with a male relative. Gay men and women are sent to a ‘special camp’ where they are partnered up with the opposite sex and made to be intimate until they are ‘cured’, and their children forced to live with the closest male relative until ‘the biological parent marries in the proper way.’ Jean tries to navigate this new world and what it means for her five year old daughter, Sonia, until a very enticing offer gives her the opportunity to fight back…
Don’t worry! That is all I will say about the plot, so as not to give any major spoilers away.
The world Dalcher has created is incredibly thought out and scarily plausible, especially with the resemblance to ‘the real world’, specifically, President Trump’s plans for America ‘…the wall separating Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and Mexico itself had already been built…’ Like in real life, suggesting something as insane as muting all women would cause an uproar. It began small; gradually reducing the amount of women holding seats in congress to 0. Then teaching their ideology of a man and a woman’s role in the world in schools. Women’s passports were taken away ‘my passport had been invalidated’ so they couldn’t leave the country. They were made out to be something fashionable to wear by calling them bracelets, which came in a variety of colours, as if that would lessen the blow of being denied your voice. ‘…pick your own colour, add some sparkle or stripes’. The slow build up to eventually creating this world where women have no rights chilled me to the bone. You wouldn’t see it coming if it were to happen in real life. The thought of losing my freedom to go out on my own, to learn, to be able to tell my family I loved them without risk of one thousand volts of electricity coursing through me is enough to make me want to move underground.
Every chapter is like a mini story, always leaving you with a cliff-hanger or surprising statement, making it hard to stop reading. The plot line starts off slow and is mainly world building, but you need this to be able to digest this horrific new world. You start to understand the world and the way this radical religious government thinks just as Jean is offered the ‘opportunity to fight back’ as I mentioned before.
Dalcher really makes you think hard about this novel, and what you would do if this actually happened. All baby girls have a word counter placed on them when they are merely a few months old. Would you teach her to speak? As a mother, would you waste your own words teaching your daughter? And would you teach her words and risk her repeating it over and over like children do, and end up being electrocuted? Or would you leave her to figure it out as she grows, condemning her to only being able to use basic speech? And you can forget them being able to read, too.
The main message of this novel is to speak up, and make yourself heard. Jean didn’t speak up against this new government when it was just in its initial days, and she didn’t march along with others who didn’t agree with the new ideologies, as she didn’t believe it would ever happen. Now, she regrets not at least trying to take a stand for herself and her gender. The book serves to remind people to take a stand for themselves an what they believe in. To be the one to try and change something instead of standing idly back.
This book is definitely worth the read, and I would highly recommend it.
Check out Dalcher’s website here.
Purchase your copy of VOX on Amazon or Waterstones
The Adventurer 