REVIEW: VOX by Christina Dalcher

VOX by Christina Dalcher

RATING: ★★★★★

SIMILAR READS: THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood.

GENRE: Dystopian fiction.

“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. That’s what they say, right?”

I have given few books this year a full five-star rating. VOX is, unquestionably, deserving of it. When the Trump era began, I read HANDMAID’S TALE, thinking that it would be all too real, too scary, to get through with the realities of this administration on the horizon. I think that’s what makes a good dystopian novel: the ability for the horrors of the new society to seem achievable. Maybe not perfectly realistic at the moment, but looming in the future, dark, waiting.

I’m going to be honest, while HANDMAID’S was certainly a chilling dystopia with a lot of cultural connections and fears realized within its narrative, I didn’t think it was as realistic (or, I guess, “achievable”) as a lot of readers made it out to be. VOX, while not entirely, seamlessly plausible, certainly lays out a possible, future America in which women’s voices are silenced. Quick warning here for HANDMAID’S spoilers!

After taking a lot of time to mull over the differences and figure out what it really was about this book that struck me more than Atwood’s seminal, misogynistic, dystopian novel, I figured a few things out.

First, where HANDMAID’S TALE’s fundamentalist Christian dictatorship is thrust upon the government by a terrorist attack, VOX’s is the result of the same process and ideologies responsible for the Trump administration–racist, sexist, conservative, white America felt empowered by a candidate who embodied their ideals. At the same time, voter turnout among the people who could help change the tide–white, liberal women and men–was minimal. Protagonist Jeanie isn’t very concerned at the onslaught of the Pure administration, and her college roommate, Jackie, a gay woman and basically the picture of today’s pussyhat-wearing, Women’s March-ing feminist, tries, to no avail, to convince her to march, protest, and vote. One cyclical message throughout the text is multiple interpretations of an Edmund Burke quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Jeanie says it, Jackie says it, and Jeanie’s children say it, and it serves as a reminder of the fact that ignorance, privilege, and the ideas that influence so many people today–that their votes won’t matter anyway, that whatever changes could happen won’t be “that bad,” that they can skate by without consequence–can have incredible consequences for everyone.

Where HANDMAID’S touches upon issues that undoubtedly plagued the 80s, like women’s reproductive rights, VOX chillingly touches upon issues that plague women and LGBTQIA+ people today. In a world where Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony is seen as a lie, where women and LGBTQIA+ people’s stories aren’t being listened to, VOX rings incredibly true. I actually found a lot of solace in this book; I was able to identify with Jeanie’s palpable rage at the world because in this administration, I feel that, too.

And maybe this means that now is the perfect time for people to pick up this book–when they’re feeling their angriest, when the elections are only so far away, when they need that extra motivation to resist.

I certainly think so.