Reading them a bedtime story or even just telling them you love them. You also appreciate the little things that cannot be done for your own family. In considering the 100 word limit I also appreciated how very little could be said in 24 hours and just how many words were eaten up in the simplest of necessary sentences. That creeping sense of foreboding when you are reading that makes you stop and think ‘my god, what if?….’ What scared me about this story was the fact that we could one day find ourselves not a million miles away from something like this occurring. When Jean’s skills as a neuroscientist are called upon by the Pure Movement, she has to make some tough decisions and stay perceptive around who she can and cannot trust. These along with a litany of other ‘rules’ were enough to raise the hairs on my arms and raise my hackles! They cannot read books or write anything down. This movement extends to them being under surveillance via cameras everywhere so that they can’t even use sign language to communicate. They are no longer permitted to work and female children can only study maths in school to enable them to budget effectively for their family. They want to see women as inferior beings, control them, censor them and take away their voices and opinions. This is all down to instruction from the president of the USA and the religious ‘Pure’ movement. If they dare to go over their 100 word limit there are dire consequences. The counter resets at midnight every night. All females are allocated just 100 words a day to use and the bracelet counts them down one by one. This story centres around neurolinguistic scientist Jean McClellan and her family, husband Patrick, eldest son Steven, two twin boys Sam and Leo And 6 year old daughter Sonia.Īs the females in the household Jean and Sonia are fitted with ‘bracelets’ which count their words. Well dear reader, I can confirm that it is deserving of every last bit of praise, despite the fact that it horrified me! I had seen so much buzz surrounding this book and just knew I had to have the chance to read it and absorb it, just to see for myself if it was as good as early reviews were saying.

Vox christina dalcher review