mouse reviewed Docile by K. M. Szpara
A science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a …
nope nope nope
1 star
Content warning racism, sexual violence
I decided not to finish this! I was too creeped out by the way the author writes (numerous, very graphic) rape scenes like erotica, and writes about slavery but making it "colorblind."
There's a brief hand-wave at ancient Rome as a model for slavery, which apparently justifies the story completely ignoring the actual slavery historically in the US, as well as contemporary prison labor? It's bizarre to me to write a book about slavery and capitalism in the United States and have it be totally disjoint from... slavery and capitalism in the united states. Even the aesthetics of social class felt off.
It's possible that something in the last hundred pages exonerates it, but frankly I doubt it! (I looked up the ending and it was as rape-apologist as I predicted).
If this was intended to be specific slavery kink erotica, or you want to read it for those ends, go have fun. But the way it was packaged and marketed seem to present it as an insightful dystopia about capitalism, so I'm reviewing it as such.