Vox by Christina Dalcher

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Just started reading this. Thought provoking and topical.
Anybody else read it?

It's in my to read pile!

Mine too, I bought it for a holiday but not read it yet

I really enjoyed it, but the ending felt a bit rushed. Creepy thought though.

Bloody awful

I enjoyed it but was disappointed by the ending

DH bought it for me.
Amazingly he must have actually been listening to some of my recent rants.
I am getting stuck into it. It is chilling though.
I won't say any more. No spoilers.

Oh, don't tell me the ending!!!

I enjoyed it but the ending felt very rushed.

I agree about the ending! Rushed and got rather away from the points of the rest of it (IMO anyway). Also I found there were some frustrating gaps in terms of explaining some of the background, why those specific decisions had been made/how they were "sold" to people etc. But overall I did enjoy it and found it thought-provoking.

I’m about halfway through this. I am enjoying it but find some aspects of it very sinister. It makes me angry and hopeful at the same time, if that makes sense!

I don't think the writing is that great tbh, but enjoying the story.

I am currently re-reading The Women's room by Marylin French. Realising how little has changed . Still one of the best novels I have ever read. Every time I read it I see more in it.

(I have always got around 3 - 5 books on the go at the same time).

It's an interesting and enjoyable read in a disposable pulp fiction sort of way, but not actually very good as a book. The characterisation is a bit thin, and the plot twists are all signalled with signposts that wouldn't be out of place on a motorway, so nothing comes as a surprise. (And if I had to read one more description of her lover's manly man hands, I think I'd have screamed.

Three stars on an Amazon review if I was in a generous mood. I think it got a bit of an easy pass by reviewers on the strength of the "if you liked Atwood here's something to read next" vote. Naomi Alderman's The Power is a much better book.

I thought it was twaddle tbh. It starts off with what feels like a good idea superficially but the more you think about it the more it falls apart.
What did it for me in the end was the realisation that without speech you couldn't do the vast majority of your wifework, so the husband has saddled himself with someone who can cook and clean but not do a lot more. I don't think there are many men who would be willing to effectively take on all the household organisation and parenting and lose the emotional support even if they are nasty sexists and want their wives to shut up.
This in itself struck me as deeply ignorant of how women live outside the author's academic bubble.

Even within the author's academic bubble it makes no sense. As a former academic researcher in the overlap area between linguistics and neuroscience, Dalcher must know that the developmental window for language acquisition is a use it or lose it phenomenon. So if you rendered all the mothers in your society mute, and sent the men out to work, those men's sons would end up not developing language. Which presumably the dystopian patriarchy would not want as an outcome.

I thought the concept was great but the writing is crap and some of it just doesn't make sense. Could be a great TV shoe in better hands than the author.

Barbara, exactly!
Gilead makes a lot more sense.

Barbara, the author does say that in the story. It is key to the plot.

It's set up in the plot as a reason some men are prepared to support backing women in their rebellion, yes. My point though is it's deeply implausible this would happen in the first place, though.

I suppose it is such early days in the regime it hasn't been thought through.
Governments not thinking things through isn't unusual IMO. ( Only half joking...)

Some good ideas but poorly executed. The world of the book wasn't properly thought through and so as it went on I became less engaged and my reading speeded up. As others have said, the ending is rubbish.

who is Christina Dalcher? never heard of them do they right fiction or is it more religious?

It's her first novel.

I think i won Vox on mumsnet

Anyway i agree with other posters, good premise but a bit of a disappointing delivery

It was quite a light, easy read

I enjoyed this and The Power by Naomi Alderman.

I've read it and thought it was a poor quality rip off of The Handmaid's Tale. Even the style is similar, especially the narrator saying something and then contradicting herself - in THT that works, in Vox it doesn't. The names are also similar - June in THT, Jean in Vox.