Vox

by Christina Dalcher
Dec 16-23, 2018

I've been reading nonstop lately. What else is there to do in winter?! And Vox was a super quick read that I busted out in a week.

My first inclination is to call it Handmaid's Tale-Lite. Women are repressed in the name of religion, but it's only been a year in this new way of life, and again, only in the US. Vox is like the Cliff's Notes of a dystopian society. It held my attention and stressed me out, but resolutions came quickly and crises were swiftly resolved. Because of this, it was hard for me to really dwell on the "what-ifs" presented here. But really, what if you could only speak 100 words a day? How would you make them count?

Dalcher does a decent job at character building in minimalist form. Just enough to evoke hatred for most characters. Her vocabulary isn't the best – I hate when people use the word "sex" as an anatomical description – but the simplicity flowed easily and didn't leave any room for misinterpretation.

I also think Vox is a timely parallel, in abstract form, to our current state of affairs. Again, the what-ifs.

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A Short History of Drunkenness

by Mark Forsyth
Dec 8-16, 2018

To finish the full title, A Short History of Drunkenness: How, Why, Where, and When Humankind Has Gotten Merry from the Stone Age to the Present. A fun, hilarious history on being drunk. Not drinking in general, but getting hammered. Laugh out loud funny at times, yet still enlightening. A good break between serious novels.

I had to take not of a few funny quotes that are definitely worth repeating at party:

Trying to punch a saber-toothed tiger when you're five sheets to the wind is a nightmare.

To pass an entire day and night in drinking disgraces no one.

The number of accounts of people dropping down dead in a gin shop is phenomenal and depressing.

Crack is always served with crumpets.

He blew his money on whores and oysters.

Forsyth has a great sense of humor. Worth the read if you've ever been known to get overserved.


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