"Vox" by Christina Dalcher Is Overkill on the Apocalyptic "Maiden's Tale"

"Vox" is a debut novel by Christina Dalcher which delves into a dystopian American future that appropriates heavily from Atwood's masterpiece "The Handmaiden's Tale" and proselytizes too overtly against unchallenged authoritarian rule.  Dalcher's debut doesn't deliver as a suspense novel, a political protest or sci-fi apocalyptic terror novel in the not too distant future.  It tries to achieve all three and fails on all fronts.  Jean "Genie" has a doctorate in linguistics but as a female, she's cuffed with a band on her wrist that limits the daily number of spoken words to a 100 or else receives a shock for each  enfracture, escalating in voltage with every additional word over the allotted amount.   Jean's husband has a job with the powerful elite working for the President of the US; an evil punitive tv evangelist.  The president heralds in an era overtaken by the extreme right & Bible Belt religious zealots which has paved definitive roles for men & women.  The men are omnipotent, the women all subservient.  Jean got her degree at the apex of the seismic shift which now holds her hostage to her household duties with little to say about that - aloud. Her eldest son is a senior in high school and has been easily converted to the predominant "Pure" way of thinking and behavior.  She also has twin sons & her beloved youngest, Sonia is just starting kindergarten.  Sonia like all females is constricted by a wrist band that will zap her into silence & servitude.  This unbearable plight seems to fall on the heroine shoulders of Jean who is called back into service by the President to recreate the formula she devised to cure aphasia.  The ulterior sinister plot is to reverse the anti-aphasia serum into a potion for use as a weapon of mass destruction to render all foreign powers or enemies - without the power of speech.  There aren't enough words to describe how absurd & incredulous I found this sci-fi thriller plot.  I will say Dalcher recounts endless examples of historic horrors of a small faction obtaining too much power as to become unstoppable:  the Spanish Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, Nazi Germany, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia and so on.  Dalcher also borrows from brilliant & harrowing authors such as Atwood, Orwell & Huxley but botches "Vox" like the Bubonic plague.  I can't vouch for this amateur attempt to politicize corrupt leaders within a supercilious sci-fi genre.   Dalcher's trope - evil triumphs when good people do nothing is something she drones on relentlessly til it falls on deaf ears.  I agree with the intended messaging, it's essential to use our voices & protest injustice.  It's her novel I found disagreeable.  Still, she's right, "Memory is a damnable faculty."