Finished: Vox (Dalcher) Vox, which means the voice in Latin, is a very eye-opening book,written in our current times, that is scary to envision our country heading towards. Dr. Jean McClellan is a wife and mother of four, and also a doctor who has just discovered the cure to one particular kind of aphasia, a devastating side-effect of some strokes where the stroke victim can only speak in nonsensical phrases that make sense only to that person. The discovery of the cure remains a secret, however, as the very day after the discovery, Jean, like all other women and girls in the country is outfitted with a "counter" bracelet that will deliver her a violent electrical shock if she speaks more than 100 words a day! Like all other women, she is stripped of her job, and no longer allowed to read or write. She is to be the wife and mother at home, and that is all...not allowed to open mail or even read a cookbook. The little girls are sent to separate schools from the little boys. The girls are not allowed to learn to read or write, but can learn math to balance checkbooks, and learn home-economics skills. The bracelets are put on the girls when they are babies, so they are never even allowed to develop the language skills that most babies develop in their early years. It's a terrible existence! :-( In Jean's family, she's got a teenage son, twin 11 year old sons, and a six year old daughter. It's heartbreaking to see their family dinners where the boys get to talk as much as they want about what they did in school, homework, friends, projects...but 6 year old Sonia must sit basically silent so as not to go over her 100 words. She sadly grows used to being silent. The country is being run by the hideous idiot president that came after the first African American president...and his main advisor, a right-wing preacher who sees himself as the second coming. The preacher basically runs most everything in the country, often coming on the government run television to show what happens to people who don't mind the rules or try to rebel against how things are. They are either executed or sent to prison camps where they are fitted with electronic counter bracelets where they are allowed ZERO words or they will be shocked. So, one day, the preacher and several higher-ups in the government pay a visit to Jean and tell her that the president's brother, who he relies on, has had a stroke and is suffering from aphasia! They need her to resume her research. (They don't know she had already completed it.) She refuses until they tell her that they will take off both her bracelet and her daughter's for the duration of her research and "fix" to the problem. Her husband, also a doctor, works for the government, but does not at all agree with what is going on, however he's a passive man who goes along with things to keep their family safe and keep his job so they can live. When Jean arrives at the lab they have designed for her and two of her former partners to work at, she realizes that this lab had been outfitted far earlier than just a week before when the president's brother supposedly had his stroke. She is to report directly to another man who used to be on her team, but was full of himself and worthless when it came to contributing to the project. There are a few people who have secretly started what they can of a resistance, but it's very dangerous. With the help of her two former colleagues, Lorenzo and Lin, Jean quickly has the cure ready, since she'd already finished it before, but she doesn't want to let them know, because as soon as they know, then she and Sonia will be back in their bracelets. There's a bigger problem, though. Jean realizes that there are actually three different teams working on the solution, and that they are just one of the teams. When she sees the names of the other two teams, she realizes that one is working on developing, not the anti-dote to the aphasia, but something that will CAUSE it in healthy people...and the other group is working to make that agent water soluble. Something much more sinister is at bay. The president and the preacher and the other men in charge are planning to inject as much of the population as possible with the aphasia serum to turn everyone into babbling sheep. Jean and her husband, Patrick, concoct a dangerous plan. The president, all his top aides and the preacher are having a huge meeting in a few days, which Patrick will also be at. With the help of Lorenzo and one guard who is on their side, Patrick plans to sneak in a vile of the serum and put it in the water and coffee of the men and turn THEM into the babbling sheep before they can do it to the rest of the country. The plan works, at the expense of Patrick, who is killed in the effort. However, since the top 10 men in succession to the presidency are also affected, a new president is elected by the people who swears that our country will never again disintegrate to such a horrific state. This was a very interesting and scary book. Much like The Handmaid's Tale, it truly makes you think and wonder how close our county could come to this if we keep voting in leaders like we did two years ago and keep affirming misogynists to the Supreme Court.

Finished: A Prayer For Owen Meany (Irving) I finally finished the book, and I'm glad I stuck it out! It was a book I had to read in small doses, due to Irving going off on a few political and religious tangents at times...but they did relate to the story and all come tied together at the end. This is a story about two best friends, Johnny Wheelwright and Owen Meany, who grow up together in a small New Hampshire town. Johnny comes from a wealthy, town-founding family, while Owen comes from working class, granite quarry-owning parents. Owen is unique in that he is very small and light in stature, and has some sort of larynx damage that causes him to talk only in a high-pitched voice. Even as a young man, he never grows above five feet tall, and he always has the same voice. As children, Johnny and the other Sunday school children make a game of lifting Owen above their heads and passing him around...not bullying him, but just having fun and including him in the fun. Johnny has his own unique upbringing. His mother, Tabby, is a single mother with a beautiful voice who, as a young woman, would take the train into Boston one night a week to secretly sing in a nightclub. When she became pregnant and gave birth to Johnny as a single mom, she would never reveal who the father was, even at her wealthy mother's insistence. Tabby was a positive light and loved Johnny fiercely. She also treated Owen like a second son since he spent so much time at their house and away from his own mentally ill mother, and constantly working father. Tabby meets a loving man, Dan Needham, when Johnny is just six or seven, and Dan and Tabby fall in love. They wait a few years to get married, but when they finally do, Dan treats Johnny just as if he was his own son. He's a very loving and kind man, and adores Tabby. When the boys are eleven years old, they are playing in a baseball game when Owen goes up to bat. Normally the coach makes Owen stand there and take a walk, but on this day, because they're already losing so badly, he tells Owen to swing away. When Owen hits a line drive foul ball, it hits Johnny's mother right in the head as she's walking up to the game, killing her instantly. Naturally, this event has a profound affect on both Johnny and Owen, but they remain best friends. Owen just comes to believe that he is an instrument of God. It doesn't help (Johnny finds out later) that Owen's parents are a bit loony and that his mother insists that Owen is the product of a virgin birth, like Jesus. Owen's father swears they never consummated their marriage and that it's true. They tell Owen this when he's just eleven, so that, coupled with his hitting the first ball he's ever hit, only to kill his best friend's mother, makes Owen believe God is working through him. When Owen is performing in the annual Christmas play, A Christmas Carol, as the ghost of things to come, he has a vision as he's pointing to the prop gravestone and he sees his own date of death! He also has a vivid dream over and over where he sees himself dying as a 1st Lt. in the Army, saving a group of Asian children. As the boys grow older and attend the town private school together, where Dan teaches, it becomes clear how intelligent Owen is. He helps Johnny overcome a learning disability and learn how to read and study. Owen also helps Johnny search for who his father may be, even traveling to Boston with him to search it out. We know (as the readers) that whoever his father is was at the fateful baseball game and took the ball that killed Tabby while no one was looking, but we don't know who the father is. The police and Johnny assume that Owen took the ball and hid it. Only years later does Johnny find out that Owen never took it. The book is very long and full of details, but the main gist is that Owen does become rather Christlike in the eyes of many of the town folks, and even to Johnny's cousin, Hester, who falls in love with him. Owen spends many long hours discussing his faith and  beliefs with the two pastors in town, one of whom, Lewis Merrill, ends up giving "a prayer for Owen Meany" at the student assembly when Owen is kicked out of the academy his senior year in high school for forging draft cards for various students so they can buy alcohol. All the students and parents and most of the town are furious at the new academy dean for kicking out their valedictorian right before graduation. Lewis Merrill is a pastor who has actually lost his own faith, but hides it, and instead of actually saying a prayer, he just asks all the students to bow their heads and say their own prayers for Owen. One of the things that Owen and Johnny like to do in their free time is practice "the shot". The shot is a basketball shot where Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny throws him the ball and instantly hoists him into the air towards the net, and Owen shoots the ball through the hoop. They practice this shot over and over and over until they can do it in under three seconds. When college comes, Owen has basically lost his love for making good grades, while Johnny goes on to major in English. Owen signs up for the ROTC. He feels strongly that he is supposed to go to war in Vietnam and that is where he will die saving children. Johnny, Hester, Dan and even Johnny's grandmother, who now adores Owen, try to talk him out of willingly going to Vietnam, but Owen insists. However, Owen fails the physical requirements when he can't get over the obstacle course wall. He's assigned to be a casualty officer in Phoenix where he makes the most of being that person who escorts the bodies of soldiers who are killed in action to their families, and comforting those families however he can. Meanwhile, on one of his leaves, he insists that Johnny come to the quarry workshop where they make grave markers with a diamond drill. He wants Johnny NOT to go to Vietnam and get killed, so he talks Johnny into letting him cut off his index finger with the drill so HE will fail his physical. This is all good with Johnny, who despises the war. As a matter of fact, Johnny is narrating the story from Canada, where he has lived  for the past twenty years, not as a deserter (because the finger amputation worked) but as a disgruntled American expatriate...albeit one who finally found his believe in God thanks to Owen. So, we finally approach the date of what Owen believes to be his death, even though he's a bit confused because he's not over in Vietnam or around any small Asian children. He insists that Johnny fly out to Phoenix, though, and spend the day before with him. It is 1968 and the are both now 26 years old. Johnny accompanies Owen while he escorts a body back to a family who is seething mad at the military. The teenage son at home has some definite mental problems, lots of anger and a hatred of the Vietnamese. He's also got all kinds of guns, ammunition and grenades at his home. Johnny and Owen get through that experience ok, and then actually have a really nice time at the hotel pool just hanging out, drinking beer, remembering all about their childhood, and then later staying up late watching television. In his spare time, Owen writes feverishly in  his diary, something he's done from childhood, but never let Johnny see. The next morning, it's time for Johnny to go back home so Owen takes him to the airport. As they wait for Johnny's plane to come in, another plane lands and off disembarks some nuns with a group of tiny Vietnamese children! They are orphans of the war and have been brought to the United States to be placed in homes. The nuns see Owen's uniform and ask him if he and Johnny will take the little boys to the men's room while they take the girls to the ladies. They say of course, and fail to see the angry teenage boy from the day before lurking in the hallways. When they are in the bathroom with the children, everything seems to come to Owen at once as he realizes he is with a bunch of small Asian children and at that moment, the angry teenager comes into the bathroom, cursing at them all. In his high-pitched, child-like voice, Owen says the only two Vietnamese phrases he was compelled to learn. He tells the children to get down and take cover. Because of his small stature and because his voice sounds high like theirs, they calm down and do as he says. The angry teenager takes the pin from the grenade and tosses it into the bathroom. Owen immediately tosses the grenade to Johnny and says, "you know what to do...we have under four seconds". As Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny tosses the grenade back to him and hoists Owen up to the small, very high, brick window. Owen places the grenade on the ledge, but instead of coming back down, he holds it there with both hands to make sure it doesn't roll back down. Both of Owen's arms are blown off, but Johnny and all the children are ok. As Owen bleeds to death, he tells Johnny now he knows why his voice never changed all those years. It was meant to be this way for the children. And...now he knows why he had to insist that Johnny come and be there that day. They had to do the shot! He dies a hero, just not in the way he had thought it would be. Naturally, Johnny is devastated. As he narrates the book, he even flashes back on some things that happened after Owen died. One time, when he almost fell backwards down some stairs, he swears Owen's hand reached out and held him up. And, the biggest thing....when Johnny goes to see Pastor Lewis Merrill to plan Owen's service, he realizes that the Pastor has no faith left at all...that he's just been faking it for years. Suddenly, Owen's voice comes out through Pastor Merrill's and tells the pastor to open the third drawer of his desk. He yanks it so hard, that the drawer comes out and out rolls the baseball that killed Johnny's mother! Pastor Merrill is Johnny's fatherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I didn't see that one coming! Johnny is stunned, upset, and underwhelmed. He realizes that Pastor Merrill (who was married with children when he had the affair with his mother) has been a coward all these years. He also realizes that in all his talks with Pastor Merrill, Owen must have one time seen the baseball and led Johnny to this point now, knowing how much he wanted to know who his father was. All these things, coupled with Owen knowing exactly when he would die, have turned Johnny, who pretty much lost his faith when his mother died, into a believer of God. At the end of the book, we learn that Johnny says a prayer for Owen Meany every day...a prayer to God that he will bring his best friend back to him. ok, so this was a good book, just long. But the message at the end and how it all came together was worth the slow slow read! Really glad I finally read this one! :-)