Immaculate Conception

A Novel

De: Ling Ling Huang

Narrado por: Carolyn Kang

“A superb work of fiction.”—New York Times Book Review

What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most?

Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.

Enter SCAFFOLD. Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma. Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever. But at what cost?

Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

Deeply miserable

This book was incredibly well written. It’s so easy to picture every moment depicted and you truly feel the desperation of the main character.
The misery and hopelessness is palpable throughout the entire story and it’s increasingly difficult to like the main character even as you try to understand her reasoning.
While I understand this may not be everyone’s cup of tea I was deeply moved by the novel and I look forward to more works by this writer.

Art World Jennifer’s Body Toxic Friendship Sci Fi Thriller

Somebody get A24 cuz we got a new banger. Incredible follow up from Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty—here we follow 2 friends who get caught up in a toxic, obsessive, and all-consuming friendship on the fringe of science and art. Beautiful prose, flawed characters, and a heady conceptual experiment on what it means to be creative and create in a near future world.

A freaky odyssey into toxic obsession and inferiority complex that stuck to the shallows

I hate to say it but this felt like a bad clone of Natural Beauty: good source material & interesting premise, poor reproduction & shallow follow-through on what should’ve been an extremely deep & profound journey into two women sharing their minds with each other. It could’ve given more horror, more science fiction, more depth to each woman’s personality outside of their feelings & choices, but it didn’t. Instead, this felt like Huang took all of the good parts of Natural Beauty & pasted them onto a first draft of a scifi story idea. Disappointed but it was okay I guess.

Very interesting exploration of the mind and creativity

This is a sad story of how addictive access to creativity and pleasing others is. It goes very deep into consciousness, art and meaning — and the inability to trust others when you are insecure. This is a super interesting exploration through the lens of an artist seeing the world and society.

Mathilde’s voice

Everyone else described why this book is amazing better than I could. Absolute 5 stars for me.
I wanted to highlight the way the voice actor voiced mathilde, though…
The way she put innocence into it and made it more meek than Enka’s really shaped the story for me. I’m not sure it would’ve made the same impact if I had just read it on my own?
Brilliant addition the the story’s world.

I would give it 4.5 stars

I LOVE Ling Ling’s story telling abilities! And this narrator is amazing. Natural Beauty was one of my top reads for least year. And I will buy her next book as soon as it comes out. Ling Ling is a rear talent!

Exploration of Envy and Friendship

Can you be friends with someone if you envy them? Can you worship someone’s brilliance and have it leave you unaffected? What makes us who we are? Where do art and technology intersect? How do we find validation?

I hesitate to go too much into the plot. I don’t want to give away the twist and turns. Enka is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, almost literally in this world. In art school she meets Mathilde, an art prodigy, with deep emotional scars. The two form a co-dependent friendship. Together they seem to bring out the best in each other’s work but still Enka isn’t anywhere near her friend.

Jealousy, leads to some shockingly selfish decisions that test the limits of friendship and the ownership of self and artistic expression. I found myself questioning if Enka had any self awareness. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Personally, I loved the art influences and exploration. Yes, the author relied on shock value and artistic tropes but she is an author not a performance artist.

I highly recommend this piece!

Shocking!!!

It started a little slow,but when the storyline picked up, it kept my interest and I couldn’t put it down. The twists were shocking.

Deeply thought provoking

This book took me by surprise, it’s not the kind of thing I normally read but was invested right away and stayed invested throughout. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

To future listeners

By rating it is clear I did not like this book. However I (genuinely) believe that if you like selfless, self loathing characters in addition to horror, you might love it.

The concepts this author come up with always draw me in, but we spend so much time inside the main character's head that anything that happens, is completely overshadowed (both in mood and observations) by the main character's constant self hatred, depression and passivity.

She cannot make one observation without also thinking about her empty non existent self. There is no escape from her within the story, neither in plot nor other characters, because everything is mentioned to point out her misery.

It is like watching a movie with 80% of the sound and vision clouded by a big, grey paper bag. It completely ruins any sense of action, dread, or excitement by being in the settings crafted for this story. Mosfegh writes about similar characters yet even she feels less myopic