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.