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Docile by K. M. Szpara (Review #211)

"There is no consent under capitalism.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him.

Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects - and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it."

Review:

This is the first time I am writing a review of a book I DNFed. Usually, my policy the DNF books is that if I didn't finish it, I won't comment on it. For this book however, I'm making a rare exception. This is something I can't let go.

The tagline of this book is what has drawn my attention from the start. "There is no consent under capitalism." I read the synopsis, and thought to myself "this book is going to use fiction as a commentary on capitalism, that sounds fucking awesome, I'm in."

This is not at all what I signed up for. This tagline is nothing more than clickbait, and this author is probably the worst person I've ever come across. Mr. Szpara decided to mask a story that deliberately ignores the existence of slavery and racism using BDSM. This was absolutely horrendous to read. Not only that, but this author portrays rape as consensual sex, shows several rape scenes to the point where it was so traumatizing for me to read, I had to stop. No way in hell was this book a commentary on the systems we deal with today because if you really knew what your tagline meant, this story would not even exist. I am appalled, horrified, and altogether infuriated by this work, the author who wrote it, and the publishers who decided that this book should be available to the public. 

God forbid a person of color ever pick this up because I am disgusted with this. 

Do not pick this book up. Plain and simple. Please check out my other reviews, there are good books out there, this is just not one of them.




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