Docile

Docile, K.M. Szpara, which has been in my house since... early March... through various renewals and overduages... but which I have finally read. And my verdict is that it was interesting but it didn't quite work for me. The plot was very close to something that would have been played for porn and romance in fanfic, but I didn't feel like it was really going for either (or if it was it wasn't landing for me). And there was also a critique of debt under capitalism and the desire of the ultrawealthy to own and control, but the worldbuilding was a little too vague for that either. Like, some of the main drivers of the plot felt pretty arbitrary (why exactly is there this pressure for the rich protag to have a slave and an arranged marriage? I guess just for conformity?) which works if it's just a setup for porn/romance but didn't really make me feel like the world made sense. Honestly the book I would most compare it to is Bear and Monette's A Companion to Wolves, which is also about taking tropes and playing them serious and No Fun. Except with rather thin courtroom drama here instead of fighting giant trolls.

Foz Meadows wrote a really good review of Docile here, with some of the similar reactions I had, and bringing up some other even sharper points around race and American history. Except that the fic reader in me was a lot less into it than the fic reader in Meadows.