Vox

Vox by Christina Dalcher     326 pages

"Set in an America where half the population has been silenced, VOX is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed 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 overall thoughts are that this book, whose premise was so intriguing to me, didn’t go far enough to match my expectations. I wanted it to be so much more than it was. In some ways, it felt like Dalcher was trying to write a “Handmaid’s Tale” read-alike, but Jean just cannot live up to the standard of Offred. The story is too short and doesn’t really explore the world too much. Like with “Handmaid’s Tale,” Jean has little interaction with the resistance, in fact she didn’t even realize there could be one, and so much of the story is focused on Jean’s own reception of and reaction to the Pure Movement. Since I didn’t care for Jean, I cared little for her comments or feelings on the whole situation and so the book was really just me trying to figure out how this movement would be brought down, or if it even would be. So, would I recommend it? Yes, to those who like reading dystopias or are interested in feminist literature. But otherwise, I’d say people could pass on it and they wouldn’t be missing much.

A Spark of Light

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult     352 pages

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

This was a fascinating story, and well crafted, as it weaves together the stories of several lives as they intersect on one particular day at a woman's reproductive health clinic.

Some are there to get an abortion, some are there to get the pill, some are there because they work there, they are the abortion doctor, or that is where they receive they're gynecological exams. Whatever the reason, on this fateful day all their lives are thrown together when an anti-abortion activist starts shooting.

This story was a bit difficult to follow, at first, as it traces the story backwards. Immediately you're thrust into the story, amongst the hostages, the negotiator, and the gunman. It's always difficult for me when a story jumps back and forth between perspec

tives, and this story followed ten different people, and it jumped rather frequently.

The thing that Picoult is so skilled at is revealing the story, bit by bit, until all the pieces begin to come together, finally, into a whole, at the very end. And when you finally get a major reveal you've been waiting for the whole time you've been reading, often you end up making some audible sound, like a gasp, because you just didn't see it coming. At least, that's how it was for me, though not as strongly this time, as I predicted the sort-of big reveal before it happened, though not until I was at least half-way done.

The parts I loved about this story were the different character's stories and how they all fit together to tell this overarching story about abortion from all sides. Going into this story, you might just think it's a pro-live vs. pro-choice struggle. But there are so many facets that make up the abortion discussion, that aren't as often brought up. Picoult makes sure to touch them all. I learned so much just reading this book - and I highly recommend reading Picoult's "Author's Note," as well, where she speaks personally about her thoughts on abortion.

That being said, what kept this from being higher rated for me were the numerous times that this story felt less like a story and more like a "covering all the bases" blanket statement about abortion. As much as I appreciated all the information about abortion, sometimes the story element was lacking and a character became a mouth-piece to tell me a specific fact or point of view about abortion rather than me feeling link this was something heart-felt by that character. This story is definitely coming in at a time where these kinds of discussions are raging and abortion is painting a wide swath in a political landscape. This notion unfortunately colors my enjoyment of the story, a bit, as it feels like a PSA rather than a story.

But otherwise, I really felt like this was well done and is definitely up there in my list of favorite Picoult books. I would definitely recommend it to anyone because perspective is necessary when it comes to topics like these. Empathy is an amazing eye-opener, and getting an idea of what someone facing such a choice might be thinking or feeling or even knowing what their life is like is important and humanizing, a point that Picoult is emphasizing, underlining, and exclaiming with every word. So read it.

The Breadwinner

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis     171 pages

Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city. Parvana’s father — a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed — works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day, he is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food.

As conditions for the family grow desperate, only one solution emerges. Forbidden to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy, and become the breadwinner.

This book was hard to read - the atrocities happening in Afghanistan seem unbelievable in our modern time: women's freedoms being limited to just their homes, unless accompanied by a man, having to cover up in full while out, not being able to go to school or hold jobs, not allowed to make noise or have a voice, etc.

But this book does important work shedding some light on the experiences of Afghans at the hands of extremists. It's an important work that children and adults should be exposed to and I'm glad I was able to read it.