Docile- K.M. Szpara

Okay friends, buckle up.

After I finished this book a week ago, I word-vomited three whole pages, single-spaced, about it.

This is an accurate depiction of what I looked like doing that:

I have so many thoughts, and as much as I would love to just copy and paste those three pages of incoherent words and keyboard smashes, I’m going to do my best to condense it down into a more manageable, easy to read size.

This book is heavy, and I am not talking about physically. Docile is one of the heaviest, darkest, most disturbing books I’ve read in a long time. Given this, I guess the first thing I want to talk about is the depiction of rape in the book because I don’t think it’s something I can avoid. I was shocked to see so many comments and reviews on Goodreads criticizing other readers for being “okay” with the depictions of rape and BDSM. Even more so, I saw many comments criticizing the author, K.M. Szpara for writing a book with rape in it.

No one said we were okay with the rape in this book. We’re not. I’m not. You’re not supposed to be okay with it. This book doesn’t ask you to be okay with it. Similarly, just because Szpara wrote a world where human sex slaves are a thing doesn’t mean he’s condoning it. I don’t like the assumption that writers who write about bad things condone said bad things. It’s fiction. It’s dystopian. He’s allowed to write and comment on difficult topics. It’s his book.

So if you are deciding to read this book, keep in mind that there are graphic depictions of rape. This book definitely isn’t for everyone, and even though I think it’s incredibly thought-provoking and twisted, I realize that not everyone will think this way.

Anyway, Docile is about so much more than those few scenes, so let’s get into that.

I love that the book is written in both Alex and Elisha’s POV. While the story is entirely Elisha’s, it is so important to have Alex’s POV there, too. I think it’s really valuable to know what’s going on in his head and how his thoughts about Dociles change throughout the book.

Even though I do find Alex to be an interesting character, I don’t want to spend too much time talking about him because I hate him to pieces. I can’ t help but hate him for everything he put Elisha through, no matter how much he tried to make up for it.

No, I want to talk about Elisha and his character development.

It’s incredible.

You realize very early on that Elisha is a very unreliable narrator. He doesn’t believe he’s turning into a Docile with Alex, but when Dylan sees him after the races and notices how much he’s changed in such a short amount of time, you know that you can’t trust Elisha because he doesn’t even realize how much he’s changed.

The change in his thoughts during the first six months with Alex is so subtle and so masterfully written that you don’t realize it until you get that outsider perspective. It hits like a ton of bricks to the chest, really.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t talk about the ending no matter how much I want to, but just know that I could write a full essay only on the last twenty pages.

In this book you will meet characters you think you will hate for the rest of your lives but grow to love, and you will meet characters who you think you will love forever and then grow to hate. Nobody is completely good or innocent. Nearly everyone is complicit in a very messed-up system no matter how much they try not to be.  

Speaking of this messed-up system, I found it awful how entrenched it is in society that love doesn’t really exist anymore. Love is kind of a foreign concept, and when it finally does come up, everyone treats it like it’s wrong and awful.

Though tropey at times, the characters in Docile are complex and interesting and intriguing. It is unlike any dystopia I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a lot), and it scares the shit out of me. It’s very unafraid to say things many other books are afraid to say.

It will rarely make you laugh, and it might make you cry a lot. I had to gather up the courage to pick it up again after I put it down. I think there’s something to be said for books that sit uncomfortably in your brain for a long time after you read it.

Docile is emotional, disturbing, brutally honest, unforgettable, and a million other things.

On a more uplifting note: I can’t even imagine writing a debut novel like this. Like, Szpara really did the damn thing, and it’s only his debut novel. What? How? He’s incredible.