First off, this book has a lot of content warnings. There’s explicit and graphic abuse of every kind, including sexual. The story centres around loss of agency and consent. Some sex scenes are incredibly deprecating and hard to read. This book tries to make you uncomfortable and it does.

Secondly, I think My opinion should be taken with a grain of salt as I’m a straight white guy. I’m not in any position to know if the m-m sex scenes are well written or framed properly for the subject matter. Essentially, the sexual content was just there for me, in service to the story being told or not. I’d check out other reviews to get a clearer picture of the book, as this book attempts to tackle a lot of heavy stuff.

This is a hard book to review because of its subject matter and how it’s framed. it’s primarily a character drama between a trillionaire, Alex, who purchases the debt of Elisha, whose family has accrued a whopping 3 million of it due to this near future reformed debt laws which make it so next of kin inherit any debt of family. Essentially no debt is ever forgiven and the living poor have little recourse but to engage in indentured servitude, imbibing a drug that makes them completely compliant and erases all memory of their service.

Elisha is purchased by Alex and refuses this drug because he’s seen first hand that the drug has harmful side affects. His mother was a “docile” (the term for this indentured servitude) for 10 years and when she stopped taking the drug it didn’t leave her system problem, leaving her disabled.

Alex is a scientist, a member of the super rich, and his family is responsible for creating the drug Dociles take, which is supposed to be 100% safe. To maintain social status he’s pressured into getting a Docile and to develop a new, even better version of the drug.

When Elisha refuses to take the drug, Alex proceeds to “train” Elisha using brainwashing techniques and positive reinforcement, all of which is expressly abusive and framed as wrong in the text from the onset. These scenes are vivid and graphic and intensely disturbing.

After this brainwashing Alex begins to see Elisha as a person and releases him from his contract, Elisha has to learn how to process his trauma and figure out who he is again and Alex has to deal with his failure to live up to his obligations, with his various privilege being stripped from him as he begins to deprogram his own privilege, which contributed to the way he sees and treats those around him.

As a character drama about trauma and abuse, and to a certain extent, privilege in society—it worked pretty well. The relationship dynamic and complex. The book felt well written, in general. And there are some really great human moments I really liked.

Where the book faltered for me was in framing this story that wanted to be about systemic oppression, privilege, and consent solely on this one relationship. We are told pretty much what I have outlined here about debt and there’s some neat future tech, and this drug. And that’s about it. We aren’t really told what the system is. Is this the same as present day America, only with these changes? If so, it is incredibly off putting that slavery is never mentioned. The story itself, and the framing of these two white characters—one incredibly privileged and one working poor—doesn’t situate itself at a systemic level. Even as it is attempting to talk about these topics, it does so only through the lens of privileged characters.

While Alex is always framed as doing something wrong, and I do like that it introduces a restorative justice angle, the only things it seems he has to make up for is perpetuating this cycle of abuse on ‘debters’ like Elisha, and for the personal abuse inflicted on Elisha himself without addressing the criminal aspect of Alex’s actions. Is it to be believed that the contract legally allows Alex to do these things to Elisha? All that appears to be on the line is the reputation of the company selling the drug and the family name, social status, etc. So the restorative justice feels extremely weak because the repercussions are so weak, they hardly matter. Alex basically has to confront his privilege and lose friends and family or whatever.

The stakes are so low and actual privilege never being defined in terms of the world, that it feels quite toothless in the end. The world building feels maddeningly incomplete. Patrons of Dociles have to follow some rules, such as keeping them in good health, but what about this breach with Elisha’s brainwashing and trauma?

It’s my feeling that this book could have been incredibly effective and is a missed opportunity. With what it’s preoccupied with discussing within the framing of the story, I did end up feeling it was worth the read, however.