Is there an audiobook of Vox?

Yes. Vox has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Julia Whelan.

How long is the Vox audiobook?

The Vox audiobook runs 9 hr 27 min.

What formats is Vox available in?

On Amazon, Vox comes as a Kindle ebook, a paperback and a hardcover.

Vox by Christina Dalcher book cover for the Book of the Day dystopian book review

Our review

Vox

Name: Vox
Author: Christina Dalcher

Christina Dalcher

4.3/ 5 · Excellent

Christina Dalcher's Vox imagines an America where every woman and girl wears a counter on her wrist and gets one hundred words a day. Dr. Jean McClellan, a neurolinguist locked out of her own field, watches her six-year-old daughter learn that silence wins prizes. A fast, furious dystopian novel for readers who wore out The Handmaid's Tale.

Narrated by Julia Whelan

Audiobook · 9 hr 27 min

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How the narration holds up

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The Review

Our take

You start counting. Not on purpose. A few chapters in, Dalcher has trained you so thoroughly on the arithmetic of her world that when Jean McClellan opens her mouth you find yourself tallying against the hundred, flinching at a wasted word, doing math instead of reading dialogue. It is a worldbuilding trick I have almost never seen land this cleanly, and it lands inside thirty pages.

The rule is a wrist counter. One hundred words a day for every female in America, the tally visible to anyone who looks, the shock arriving on word one hundred and one and climbing from there. Dalcher cashes that rule out on a six-year-old. Sonia comes home from school pleased with herself, because her class runs a competition for whoever uses the fewest words in a day, and she won. That scene is the whole novel. A child who has been taught that silence is an achievement, by adults who are grading her on it.

The first half is a domestic pressure cooker and it is the strongest writing in the book. Jean is a neurolinguist who spent her career on aphasia and can no longer leave a note for her own daughter. Her marriage cracks in ways that feel observed rather than plotted, with a husband whose great crime was doing nothing and a teenage son who has swallowed the new order whole and repeats it at dinner. Then the state needs Jean's research back, and the book shifts gear. The seams show in that back third. Lab access appears when the plot requires it, a resistance materializes on schedule, and the science turns obliging at precisely the convenient moment.

Why you should read

Great if The Handmaid's Tale left you wanting more
Great for readers who like a premise with hard rules
Great if you want dystopian fiction that moves fast
Great for anyone drawn to language and how it shapes thought

What to expect

A claustrophobic first half and a thriller back third
Short chapters and a propulsive pace
First-person narration with a sharp, impatient edge
Plot conveniences in the final stretch

The idea keeps its grip anyway. Dalcher trained as a linguist, and the argument underneath the thriller is technical and genuinely awful: language is load-bearing rather than decorative, and a girl who loses her vocabulary at six does not simply pick it back up at sixteen. Which is why Sonia's counter stays with you longer than any escape sequence. Every day the number climbs, something in her is being taken apart, and nobody in the book has the words left to explain it to her.

Reviewed by Rowan · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.3/ 5

Excellent

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Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Vox?: Yes. Vox has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Julia Whelan.
Listen free with Audible
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Vox audiobook?: The Vox audiobook runs 9 hr 27 min.
What formats is Vox available in?: On Amazon, Vox comes as a Kindle ebook, a paperback and a hardcover.

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Common questions

What is Vox about?: You start counting. Not on purpose. A few chapters in, Dalcher has trained you so thoroughly on the arithmetic of her world that when Jean McClellan opens her mouth you find yourself tallying against the hundred, flinching at a wasted word, doing math instead of reading dialogue. It is a…
Is Vox worth reading?: We scored Vox 4.3 out of 5. Christina Dalcher's Vox imagines an America where every woman and girl wears a counter on her wrist and gets one hundred words a day. Dr. Jean McClellan, a neurolinguist locked out of her own field, watches her six-year-old daughter learn that silence wins prizes. A fast…

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