Yzabel

Something like 2.5 stars, as I'm on the fence with this one. It has powerful messages, including a reminder that often, all it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing. Not that you always have that much of a choice (I've spent all my voting life picking the lesser evil candidate for president in my country, because there's just no 'good' candidate at all), but nvm. And while these messages are delivered in a not-so-subtle way, well, at least that makes them easy to see and to contemplate. The book is also a fast and easy read, with short chapters, and the first 100 pages are quite anger-eliciting, which is good in a book IMHO regardless of its other flaws—when the book leaves me indifferent, that's when I have a problem.

The issues I had with "Vox" were more of the literary kind. For starters, the characters weren't so likeable. Some are definitely not meant to be, of course, and that was not the issue; but for a story where women should be the ones reclaiming power, Jean relies so much on the men around her, including at the end, and that was disappointing. Plot-wise, the scientific premise demanded too much suspension of disbelief (one week to develop a medication, that kind of thing), and the ending was very rushed, which weakened the story for me.

In spite of my rating, though, it is a story worth reading for its message.