CW: rape, abuse, attempted suicide, extreme poverty
Hoo boy. I put this review off for a day and a half after finishing because I truly didn't know where to start. Now I know. Before you read any part of my review, first read Meg Elison's review on Tor's website. She says it better than I can.

Reading Docile made me realize how egregious the relationship between genre fiction and sexual consent has been, not just in my lifetime, but forever.

Now that you've read, let's dive in. This book is not for the faint of heart. It's not light, it's not easy, it's not a romance, and it's not "gay 50 Shades." This book is an incredibly brutal and in-your-face reality check about consent, capitalism, and human nature. I would never recommend it to a survivor of sexual violence or attempted suicide. But I do think it's an important book, and if you think you can handle it, you should read it. Never have I read a book that made me question my beliefs, my attitudes, my desires, and my place in society so heavily. Szpara presents a world in which capitalism has stretched itself to extremes: the rich are the ultra-rich, and the poor are debtors whose only true path out of financial ruin involves selling your debt, and therefore yourself, to the highest bidder. Dociles become slaves. They are laborers, "companions," servants, etc. Most consent to a drug that makes them virtually absent from their own body, unaware of what they're doing for their term. Elisha does not. As if this wasn't horrifying enough, Szpara took it further. Elisha's patron wants a companion. Someone to have an essentially one-sided, dominating sexual relationship with. Of course, it becomes a lot more complicated.

Szpara didn't want anyone to have a comfortable read. By giving both Elisha and Alex perspectives, he makes you privy to the headspace of both perpetrator and victim, often creating a feeling of bizarre complicity for the reader. It requires a stunning amount of effort to balance your feelings towards these characters throughout the novel. I, like I'm sure many others did, found myself rooting for Elisha and Alex at various points of the novel. I had to stop myself every time and ask myself why I was doing it. Is it that we're so conditioned to rape and violence in genre couples that we find ourselves looking past it? Is it that we really believe people can change? I'd like to think it's the latter, but Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and every other #MeToo abuser seem to have quashed that hope. That's not to say that people can't, and that they shouldn't try - but it is a pretty damning indictment of our attitudes as readers and as people in society that we, like Elisha, can be fooled by what appears to be care and kindness. Like Meg Elison, I also thought the book's tagline, "There is no consent under capitalism," was basically internet buzzwording. But after reading the book, I can't stop questioning things. When taken to the extremes of Szpara's near-future, the meaning of the phrase is obvious. But in our current state in a capitalist society, the question becomes: when everything around us is controlled by wealth or the lack of it, how much power and agency do we really have in what we accept or refuse? It's a startling, terrifying question. The book doesn't - can't - answer it. But it's now something I can't stop thinking about, and once again proves why science fiction (and most genre fiction) is sometimes the best vehicle for social commentary.

I won't give too much away, but I want to end on an uplifting thought: this book is also about healing, acceptance, and love. It's about hope for a new future. It's about finding and defining yourself and your boundaries. It's about changing people's hearts. Szpara made a bold, risky, brave move in releasing a book this rife with contradiction and conflict and potential controversy, and I applaud him so heavily for it. I truly won't be able to stop thinking about this book and its implications for a long time. And while we're all in quarantine, I'll have plenty of time to spiral.