I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Kellan to talk about DOCILE for this week’s episode, and it was beyond amazing to dig deep into the bones of this story about consent, healing, and the nature of capitalism at its very heart.

It’s also got naked people.

This is our Goodreads summary:


Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

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.

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I’ve been waiting anxiously for this novel since anyone started talking about it – much like GIDEON THE NINTH, I read the description and immediately knew this story would be My Brand(c). We’ve got IDENTITY ISSUES, we’ve got CHARACTERS HELD HOSTAGE BY A SOCIETY DEMANDING THAT YOU SUBMIT TO ITS POWER, we’ve got some of that sweet, sweet AM I IN LOVE WITH YOU OR WITH WHO I TURNED YOU INTO emotion-ness.

It’s great.

It’s so fucking great, I wish I could unread this book to reread it again. My copy gets a coveted place on my Special Bookshelf where my copy of SEVEN BLADES IN BLACK and GIDEON sit, where only I get to read them and if other people want to take a look, I will buy a wholeass new copy for them to have. (I have other books I am happy to lend, but some I just want to bury myself in and never let anyone else touch.)

I love Alex and Elisha’s journey together, and how they grow and adapt to each other (both in the great and not-so-great ways that they chance). Alex is compelling in his internal struggle to be worthy of his family name, and Elisha’s journey in rebellion and then adapting for the sake of self-preservation is equally compelling.

And listen. I’ll be the first to tell you that this book isn’t for everyone. Elisha and Alex are the characters in a parable that leans heavily on the moral listed on the front of the book: there is no consent under capitalism. Every choice that Elisha makes is a Hobson’s choice – there’s literally no other option than to proceed because the alternative is losing his family to a debtor’s prison. But while the story critiques these choices and Alex for being the apex of his choices, it also criticizes the society that put them in this position.

But DOCILE offers us such a new (and insidiously seducing) premise, and one that strikes so close to home. Student debt is everywhere, and as a person who went through six years’ worth of school with scholarships and still came out with substantial debt, I won’t lie and say that I haven’t thought about how much this premise would save me from my debt. (I won’t tell you about all the girls I knew that told me about looking into sugaring for tuition. I won’t tell you about having to decide between loan payments or food for the month. Too depressing, honestly.) And because this kind of debt so prevelant in today’s society compared to what it was a decade, two decades ago, it’s refreshing to see spec fic that reflects that.

Looking past the story, the prose was magnificent. Szpara knows how to write a well-paced story (even if there is some lament about the two-act structure, which honestly suits this story better than anything else could) that drives you to the next page, and the next, and the next. I unabashedly finished this book in one day, including a trip to my grandmother’s house, and I’d sell my soul to reread it again with the fresh eyes I had then.

Long story short, DOCILE is fucking baller and you should def give it a go. Everything from the writing to the narrative to the very energy of this book moves something in me. Whether it’s to be better so I’m worthy of having such a great book on my shelf, or to do what I can to hold onto the last piece of myself that makes me me in the face of overwhelming pressure, I can’t tell you for sure. But it’s enough to get me up and moving, and that’s enough to make me eternally grateful.

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Be sure to check the full interview, out now on iTunes, Spotify, and Podbean!

Content warning: Docile contains forthright depictions and discussions of rape and sexual abuse. There is also attempted suicide. You’ve been warned.

My Thoughts:
I hope that content warning was big enough. There are a LOT of depictions/discussions of both rape and sexual abuse. It’s kind of a huge plot point. But worry not, if you’re not immediately off this book because those topics are covered, please no they are NOT glorified. In the world we live in now, we are (finally but still only occasionally) discussing with some frankness what does and does not qualify as consent, and why having consent for all things you do with/to another person, even if you have already received affirmative consent for something else or at another time from that person is vitally important.We are also beginning to slowly understand that power differentials can cause those lines to become blurry – is consent being given freely, or does the person feel that they must consent or face consequences because the person asking is in a position of power over them?

This story reminds me a lot of The Handmaid’s Tale without any of the pretense at Puritanism. It is similar, but instead of Handmaids, we have Dociles, and they aren’t in the position of servitude they’re in because of their fertility, but rather because of their debt. So Dociles = debtors who are selling their debt in exchange for servitude – got it? Good.

Honestly, I don’t want to give too much of this story away because it is really, really good. I was concerned at first that I wasn’t going to be able to do this one – it is written in a very frank manner. No punches are pulled. I found it to occasionally be deeply upsetting. But really, it is such an interesting tale of abuse, suffering, the road to recovery, and even possibly redemption that I couldn’t stop reading. It covers a lot of uncomfortable ground – including the idea that abusive behavior is not always intentional, but that intentional or not the end result is the same, and the abuser must still be held accountable for the damage they have caused.

“How could I consent when I had no choice but to say yes?”

DOCILE, K.M. SZPARA
This book explores so many interesting realities that we like to pretend are merely matters of opinion: that being born into metric shit-tons of money deadens people to reality as it’s known by 99.999% of the world, that consent can’t be given in situations where power is held by one person over another without a forkload of negotiating beforehand, that having boundaries is good, and enforcing them is better. Consent can be revoked at any time for any reason (and I don’t just mean for sex).

The world Szarpa has built is both beautiful and terrifying, dystopian, but absolutely realistic. This is probably the single most interesting novel I’ve read in a long time. It is occasionally terrible, but also filled with beautiful moments and perfectly articulated truths.

If you like your topics challenging but realistic, and your dystopian tales upsettingly near to current reality give this one a try.
It covers ground like the spiraling debt crisis, consent, and all the privilege money can buy. It is really good, and it is 100% worth reading.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In a vague distant future, your debt or accrued family debt can be wiped out by becoming a Docile. Effectively you give up your current life for a set amount of time which can range from months to a lifetime, and become essentially a sex slave. Sure you might be required other services, but sexual servitude is the main course served.
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Into this twisted world comes Elisha (e-ligh-sha) Wilder, a handsome lad whose Mother was once a docile and was returned a hollow shell of her former self. With mounting debt looming overhead, Elisha enlists and is chosen by the son of the company who produces the drug, Dociline-given to all dociles-to make the user compliant. Alex is a handsome charming trillionaire forced by his father to choose a docile effectively to boost public perception of the good of the drug, and Elisha’s boyish good looks are exactly the thing he’s looking for.
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The first half of the book plays out essentially like-dare i say-fifty shades of gay, crossed with the romantic overtones of ‘pretty woman’ Alex is insufferable, spoiled and unlikeable, while Elisha is the portrait of innocence lost even as his body is turned into a thirsty instagram pretty boy come to life. Where the complication lies is his refusal to take the drug that would render him resistant-But that doesn’t include his heart.
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Here’s the thing: At times I was reading feeling like this was something Anne Rice would have penned early in her career a la ‘Exit to Eden’. I found myself loathing both characters at times and so many of the supporting players just hateful in their behavior, and yet-and yet, I couldn’t put it down.
Ultimately it has the sweet edge of a romance movie, despite a rape and what can only be termed as Stockholm syndrome.
It’s titillating and definitely sexy, certainly not for everyone. However for those who aren’t a little more chaste when it comes to their sex and romance, you might find yourself rooting for these complicated lovers. Thanks to @torbooks and @netgalley 4the advanced copy. ⠀

Docile by K.M. Szpara is a very well written, thought provoking, sci-fi dystopian novel. It's not my usual sort of read due to graphic content, but it's certainly worth picking up especially if you're interested in The Handmaid's Tale. My only major issue is that it's a little too long.

In a future where debt has exploded and the solution is selling yourself (body and soul) for your debt as a "docile," Elisha becomes the docile of not just any trillionare, but the trillionare heir to the Dociline empire. Dociline, the very drug used to keep dociles content and compliant. Docile, the very drug that Elisha has sworn to never take after seeing the effects it had on his mother. Now, as the docile as one of the most important men in the city, he and his new patron, Alexander Bishop III, both have something to prove. But for Elisha, it could cost him more than just his pride.

Consent issues as well as an exploration of debt and capitalism are at the heart of this dark novel. It's a heavy, impactful read and will definitely make you think-- but mind the trigger warnings.


TW: nonconsensual sex, indentured servitude, debt issues, abuse, etc. (Honestly this is a really dark one, so I'd check for a really comprehensive trigger warning if you have any concerns at all.)

First of all, I found this premise to be really interesting, and sadly, it even seems possible. The way the whole system is set up to blatantly favor the rich is something that is completely relatable, it’s just taken to the extreme to make a point. Moreover, this is such an addictive, high-paced read, that keeps you glued to the page at all times. I also found it to be quite unpredictable. The author really takes you on a ride, and I never knew in which way the story was gonna go, and to be honest, that was unsettling for me.

This also touched on the issues of consent and how Dociles are treated and what their position is, and how that essentially obliterates their agency and their consent doesn’t mean anything because they are put in a situation where they cannot refuse.

It was also an interesting decision to include Alex’s perspective. While I did find his narrative voice grating and sort of self-righteous in a really cartoonish way, I think it allowed the author to explore how the rich are lulled into this false sense of them being the ones who help Dociles, when in fact they are the ones that put them into that situation. Moreover, because the set up of the novel is such that Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex decides that he has to train him so he acts like his on Dociline even when he isn’t. Which basically means that he treats Elisha like a dog, and trains him like one, and punishes him constantly for minor mistakes. Alex’s perspective allowed the author to show how Alex did not see anything wrong with what he was doing. We saw how he wanted to please his father and the Board of his company, and how he sees Elisha as a project to be paraded around, and not a human being. And it was a stark contrast to seeing Elisha become this drone of himself, someone who could not separate his personality from Alex’s, who became so dependent on Alex that he lost all sense of agency. It was disturbing and devastating, but it was also in my opinion really powerful and well done.

However, this was not a pleasant reading experience for me. This book is described as being “sexy“. This book is not sexy. This book is heavy on the graphic sexual content, but since one person is a slave to the other, he doesn’t really ever consent truly to the sexual acts he is in. And that made the sex scenes incredibly uncomfortable for me, more so because Elisha doesn’t have any previous sexual experience, and he finds himself not enjoying things but thinking they are right and how it should be. And then on the flip side, the scenes at times felt romanticized to me, when in fact there was always this whole issue of consent. These are basically rape scenes, but they are written in such a way that doesn’t treat them as such. On one hand, I do understand that that’s the point, but I found it so uncomfortable to read, and the fact that I could not really get a grounding in how the narrative (or the author) positioned themselves and their attitudes towards these scenes made me feel incredibly weird. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to be sexy, because the lines were so blurred in here. This is not sexy. There’s only one consensual sex scene in here, and it’s towards the end, and it’s not between the main characters.

This is where we get to slight spoilers. I put it in white so you can select the text if you want to read it. If not, you can skip it.

The biggest issue for me and why I had such a hard time with the sex scenes is because I feel like this was in the end treated as a love story. Elisha and Alex end up together, vaguely, but they do. The book ends with them kissing. And while Alex had this whole redemption ARC where he realized he was a part of the problem, he realizes he hurt Elisha, he raped them, nothing between them was consensual and he regrets everything, it was still so aggravating to see them end up together and to see the narrative that they were in love. Elisha does break up with Alex at one point, realizes Alex literally trained him like a dog and did, in fact, rape him, but in the end, Elisha STILL has feelings for Alex and Alex is still in love with him.

And that whole thing was awful and unbelievable. We are supposed to believe that Alex fell in love with Elisha, but Elisha wasn’t a person at that time. And while Alex acknowledges this at one point, THEY STILL END UP TOGETHER. It’s so frustrating. It’s frustrating to see a character acknowledge that the other person RAPED them and then go on and end the book with them being together and having this whole thing framed as a love story. I am so uncomfortable with that. While the overall message was that they were both sort of victims of the system, one of them is also the victim of the other. SO I DID NOT WANT A HAPPY ENDING FOR THEM. PLEASE. I HATED IT.

I also had some slight issues with the writing – it was heavily dialogue focused, so it was hard to really get a grip on characters and their personalities. Both Alex and Elisha did not feel fully developed to me because we rarely got an insight into their inner monologue since this is very focused on the dialogue. And when we did it was in a way that felt like the character was directly speaking, like they were telling the reader how they were feeling, which I wasn’t a fan of. What I mean is that even the inner turmoil felt like a dialogue. I mentioned that Alex’s narrative voice really grated me — this was mostly due to the previously described issues I had with the writing.

This book is fucking disturbing but also in such an eye opening way. Set in a futuristic/dystopian version of our world. Elisha and Alex’s story is a wild one. In this novel people take on all of their descendants debt. A person can then take their debt and sign a contract with a trillionaire to become a docile and get their debt paid off. The contract stands for however long each individual client agrees on. A docile is a slave. Someone who does anything and everything for their owner without question and that includes sex. To become more compliant and numb themselves from what they are going through dociles take the drug docile. They then basically become drones. You either become a docile or go to debt prison when the police come knocking at your door.

Elisha takes over three million dollars of debt from his family. He doesn’t want his younger sister to become a docile like his mother, who never recovered from the drug when she returned home, was. Elisha leaves home to become a docile. Alex is the grandson of the one who invented docile. His family expects him to find someone to become a docile for him. This is where Elisha and Alex’s story collide.

As they become to interweave their lives as owner and docile means rules and regulations are set in place. This book is very very rated r! There is lots of BDSM and non consensual sex. There very graphic abusive scenes. I won’t go into anymore details of the book because I don’t want to spoil anything. If you can handle all the trigger warnings I highly suggest you read this one.

I could not stop thinking about this book when I wasn’t reading it. Docile raises many questions in about debt, consensual sex, drug abuse, and abusive manipulative relationships. This book put me in such a anxious state of mind. I think that was K.M.’s point and it was executed extremely well.

When I finished reading this book, I immediately had to seek out others who had read it and start a conversation. And that's, above all, what I hope this book will do: start conversations.
Docile is an anti-Capitalist manifesto, a story about debt taken to extremes - what would happen if debt could be inherited, how it would cripple entire generations, force them to do whatever it takes to get out of crushing debt - even sell their bodies to the highest bidder.
But it's also a step I've been waiting for genre fiction to go ahead and make already: that of incorporating fanfic tropes into published fiction. That's what struck me the most about this book, between its close, emotional first-person POVs to its chapter-long, explicit sex scenes, the collision of larger-than-life personalities, the wish fulfillment, its hardly-dare-to-draw-a-breath tight pacing, and its immense readability - this is all the best fanfic has to offer, and we're finally seeing those lessons in print. So many modern authors grew up with fanfic, I've honestly been baffled it's taken this long for that impact to be explicit.
And, well, Docile is exceedingly explicit.
As for the rest of it - the rape, the consent issues, the dubiously earned forgiveness - I feel like I'm not the right person to comment. The book itself is immensely readable, if extraordinarily uncomfortable at times, and I gasped and cried and laughed at all the right intervals and stayed up much too late to keep reading. It's a fascinating build-up and then takedown of brainwashing, and it takes the time to unpack all the things that were horrific in the first half, for which I am grateful. Whether it did enough, well. That's where I'm interested in the conversation.

Docile is such a wild book! I absolutely loved it! Full review will be posted closer to the publication date.

I have no idea how to review this novel. I wasn't even sure I was going to read it based on the summary, but I was stuck on the train and I didn't have anything else to read. I went for it and found myself utterly engrossed in the story, perhaps utterly horrified and extremely fascinated. Docile is an extremely disquieting book and I would not recommend it to someone without knowing them very well. It's precisely what it says on the cover, it's about consent, sex, power, and the abuse thereof. It isn't consensual and how that plays out is a part of the horrified fascination. Don't read this book if you aren't in a place where you can read about sexual abuse and power imbalances.

I can't say if I liked it, I honestly don't know. It upset me, it was good story telling. Szpara does some really interesting things with the narrative and it had a rewarding conclusion. Sometimes it was a bit heavy handed, but I don't believe a heavy hand is automatically a bad thing. You know you're going to get a heavy hand as soon as the tag line opens with "There is no consent under capitalism." If it sounds interesting you, pick it up. If the very idea makes you sick in a way you don't find interesting, give it a very hard pass.

I have conflicting feelings about this book, mainly, I think because I had a very strong idea of what I wanted it to be. It opens on such a firm note of how capitalism is a dumpster fire that I assumed that taking down the "trillionaires" was going to be the main thrust of the story and so was a bit thrown when it ended up being a little bit more about a destroyed sense of self and the path to recovery amid a larger societal message. Now, I get why Szpara did this, and it absolutely made sense within the context of the book, but it was definitely an adjustment to realize that what I thought was a tangent was actually becoming the main plot. Also...it made the book so much longer. Perhaps longer than it needed to be. And though it begins and ends strongly, the middle does drag at times.

And yet, despite all of this there were so many interesting elements here that I find I'm willing to handwave the things I was less than happy with. It's very rare that a book stays with me long after the fact, and I get the feeling I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

Interesting concept, but not for me. The relationship between the Docile and his owner became increasingly uncomfortable, even rape-y. If the goal of this book is to show how capitalism strips us of our humanity and makes us tools, then it certainly succeeded. That being said, reading about an abusive relationship wasn't worth the payoff for me.

It was queer and sexy and heartbreaking and damning and full of both critiques of capitalism and gay sex, a winning combination if there ever was one.

Docile has a lot going on. If I had to give it a quick blurb, I'd say: It's like Fifty Shades but with better smut and more Stockholm Syndrome.

This book is not for the weak-stomached. If you have issues with self-harm, physical/emotional/mental abuse, and semen, you might have trouble getting through it. Personally I wish there had been some trigger warnings at the very beginning, as that seems more important than worrying about spoilers. It would have been nice to receive a warning that there is a graphic description of a character slicing their wrist with a razor. I'm not saying that these scenes were unnecessary to the plot: it was a powerful moment that built the character, like many of the other awful situations. But I guess I just didn't read the summary close enough to realize what I was getting myself into.

Trigger warning complaints aside, I appreciated the various moral dilemmas that the characters experience. I felt like I was right there with them, twisting myself in multiple directions trying to figure it out. For the first 1/3 of the book, I didn't entirely know who I should support (if anyone). By the time I reached a certain sequence of very short chapters (not getting into them because spoilers), I was horrified, for good reason. And that's exactly what I was supposed to be feeling, because I can't imagine reading those chapters and thinking "Gee, this character is being a little over-dramatic." No. They're not. Their actions and reactions are justified, if indicative of depressing brainwashing.

I think the book's ending does a decent job of addressing the ethics of an abusive relationship. There is growth, rejection, understanding, and a hint of future happiness. But if you're looking for a pleasant gay erotica, this is not the one. This is a harsh, horrifying-to-your-core read. Is it worth it? It certainly gave me a lot to think about. So maybe.

I really liked the cover, especially the pink, As alot of covers tend to go darker,it's eye-catching. I thought that this was an interesting book, although it did push me outside of my comfort zone. (which is a good thing sometimes.) It personally wasn't for me, but I can definitely see how it can appeal to other readers!

After the synopsis I just had to have this novel and needless to say, I was slightly disappointed it wasn't the stand out I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong I loved the whole m/m science fiction concept and I'm not surprised that Tor has been the most watched publisher this year for me but I expected someone more to just wow me, you know? Nevertheless the storyline and writing style the author was able to demonstrated was impressive, and I will definitely keep an eye out for any future releases from him.