Docile Rant

 Hello Interwebs!

This is sort of a review but mostly a rant. I tried the book Docile by K.M. Szpara and DNF'ed it at 100 pages in. There are not words to express how much I absolutely hated this book but I'm sure I will find plenty. As always after the picture are spoilers and ranty, sweary ones at that. 

So this fucking book. The tagline "There is no consent under capitalism" and the description both promise a dystopian where people inherit debts and to avoid debtor's prisons they can sell their debt to the mega rich and become dociles, slaves. To be more obedient and passive and not remember their terms of service they use a drug called dociline. We are promised to follow Elisha, a young man who has become a docile to pay off his families' debts but promises he won't use dociline after it destroyed his mother during her own service. He is bought by Alex whose family owns the pharmaceutical company that produces dociline. A romance ensues in all its dystopian glory...at least that's what was promised. 

In the one hundred pages I read we met Elisha and Alex and I hated them both. Elisha is self-sacrificing and noble but has no substance. We're told his family is 3 million dollars in debt and that at some point the government stops warning you about your debt and throws you in prison but it never answers what point that occurs at. In the office where they sign up to be dociles there's Elisha and his 3 million dollars versus another boy who is only a couple thousand in debt from college. There's no context as to when debtor's prison comes into play and why being a literal slave is better than the prison. 

Second Elisha is signed up to be a literal slave and there's absolutely no description as to how the United States got to a point where slavery is acceptable again. There's also no acknowledgement of the original roots and history of slavery in the US. 

Third Alex has to either be in a relationship or manage a docile to prove he can manage his family's pharmaceutical company but there's no conversation as to why and how this is supposed to prove this to his family. Also there's no explanation as to why, when he's been the acting manager/owner of the company successfully so far why it's now being called into question. Also there's no reason why, when he is getting a docile to be a sex slave and to use him as a test subject for dociline, he doesn't discuss that at all with Elisha during his interview with him and doesn't make that a condition of signing him to a lifetime contract. 

I made it a hundred pages which was just past the point where Elisha, having been bought for sex by Alex, is raped by him. The rape scene takes place from Alex's point of view but after its all said and done they both decide it's okay because they're hot and attracted to each other. Literally no one has time for this bullshit. And it was at that point when I was done. 

I read more reviews of it after I finished it and saw a lot of people raising the same issues I had with it. Apparently I didn't make it to the point that the most prominent black character in the whole book is a slave named Ebony. Seriously I couldn't make this crap up. Mostly I couldn't muster up any reason to care about any of the characters so I DNF'ed it with a negative review on goodreads (my first goodreads review) and a single lone star review because you can't give it zero stars and this is a zero star book if I ever read one. 

Anyway Happy Reading (Read better books than this one for me!)

Richelle