Vox

Drawing comparisons with The Handmaid's Tale, this imagines a present day where in the course of a year, the right wing takes over America completely altering society. Dr. Jean McClellan has gone from a doctor specialising in neurolinguistics researching a cure from a brain condition to living as a bored housewife in an impossible situation. She remembers how a charismatic pastor takes over and forces women to leave work, to wear bracelets limiting their words to 100 a day (or else receive an electric shock), give up passports, money, bank accounts and all reading materials apart from the Bible. Even worse, Jean's children are affected - her daughter is not allowed to read or write or speak over 100 words and s therefore not learning to speak properly and her son has been brainwashed by the school to find all this perfectly normal and right. Her husband has a job at the government so they cannot rebel from this. Reproductive rights are nonexistent, homosexuality is outlawed and anyone caught doing something the state disapproves of is sent to a concentration camp or executed.


I thought this was brilliantly imagined and completely gut wrenching at times, so prescient. I listened to the audiobook and had to turn it off at times as it was making me angry on Jean's behalf and the plot was enthralling. I think that the central message was that we are all responsible for freedom, we can chose to turn a blind eye to injustice or take a stand. As recent events have shown in America, women's rights are being eroded now by the right, this is not just happening in fiction. The characters are very well drawn, particularly the family at the centre of it, and Jean's discussions with her brainwashed son are terrifying.