Vox by Christina Dalcher was an airport purchase and an easy read.
Description:
On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed to speak more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial—this can’t happen here. Not in America. Not to her. This is just the beginning. Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard. But this is not the end. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
My thoughts (as always, spoilers may abound):
This book is Atwood-lite. The most interesting aspect of the story for me was around Stephen (the main character’s teenage son) and his education and re-education. When he gets on board with the new regime, his arguments for being “Pure” – though to the reader wrong and wholly without compassion – sound rational while letting him feel important and superior. Of course this would be appealing to a teenage boy. It’s uncomfortable and frustrating to read him mimicking the doctrine he’s been fed, but it’s also very believable. His journey to broaden his mind and consider that he had been wrong also feels honest, if rushed.
Otherwise, I found the potential message of “treat everyone with kindness and respect” was mostly lost beneath a message of “don’t forget to vote” and “beware the people who use religion to make policy” and “pay attention to the eroding of your rights” and, uncomfortably, “most men are either hateful or weak.” I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt on that last one and say it was not the author’s but the protagonist’s opinion. Jean’s position is understandable in her restricted life, but narrow and simplified like Stephen’s views. And though we do get examples of varying types of “good” men by book’s end, I’m not sure Jean grows to notice the variety.
Anyway, pretty good novel, rushed ending, distinct characters, emotionally charged, worth a read.
Now, for all of you regular humans, Robert Galbraith is a pen name of the goddess J.K. Rowling, author of the much-lauded and world-shifting Harry Potter series. I, by consequence of being a bookworm, a fantasy nerd, a person with splendid taste, and someone who was born in 1988 and thus grew up with the characters as the series progressed, am a deeply committed Harry Potter fan. But I had never read any of J.K.’s adult fiction. There was no reason to believe that I wouldn’t like it, and there were many reasons to believe I would be highly diverted by her storytelling prowess, so I downloaded The Cuckoo’s Calling and introduced myself to Strike and Robin.
Listening to an audio book while running took some experimentation. I began by downloading books I thought would be inspiring (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall), energizing (Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing), diverting (Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling), and comforting (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen). Some of these were favourites and some of these were new, but with every attempt I came closer to finding the type of book I knew would be effective in keeping me going over the building mileage in my marathon training.
Meanwhile 