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Serotonin  By  cover art

Serotonin

By: Michel Houellebecq
Narrated by: John Sackville
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Publisher's summary

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

Penguin presents the audio edition of Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq. 

The most important French book of the year. 

Dissatisfied and discontent, Florent-Claude Labrouste begrudgingly works as an engineer for the Ministry of Agriculture and is in a self-imposed dysfunctional relationship with a younger woman. When he discovers her ongoing infidelity, he decides to abandon his life in Paris and return to the Normandy countryside of his youth. There he contemplates lost loves and past happiness as he struggles to embed himself in a world that no longer holds any joy for him. 

His only relief comes in the form of a pill - white, oval, small. Captorix is a new brand of antidepressant, recently released for public consumption, which works by altering the brain’s release of serotonin. With social unrest intensifying around him, and his own depression deepening, Florent-Claude turns to this new medication in the hope that he will find something to live for. 

Written by one of the most provocative and prophetic novelists of his generation, Serotonin is at once a devastating story of solitude, longing and individual suffering and a powerful criticism of modern life.

©2019 Michel Houellebecq (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"One cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading Houellebecq's work." (Karl Ove Knausgaard, New York Times)

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What listeners say about Serotonin

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Buy a pack of Lucky Strike no filters and enjoy.

Delightfully dark. Really enjoyed it even if I may not have fully understood it... Great narrator. Great approximations of a mans stream of conciousness ruminations

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Michel Houellebecq is back !

Serotonin is a nihilistic masterpiece, that will provoke and offend a lot of people - particularly Houellebecq´s opponents from the far left, the feminist movement, the political correct and the entire offensive industry.It's dark, sarkastic, rough, perverted and totally hilarious.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Masterpiece!

I laughed and I felt the pain of the character like it was mine. If you are not into fiction, this book will make you change your mind

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Weird and extreme

Thoughts about suicide, extreme sexuality (from the weirdest porn categories) some kiliing and a heavy depression in the background. Sometimes feels like he's trying be outrageous with half baked philosophy.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Exhausted, exhausting, rambling tenaciously

Narrator was beautiful.
Book left me wondering why I don't stop listening, but I kept on thinking that there should be a point to the waffle. Soon.

It never happened.
I could have listened to country music for a day and skipped the gratuitous references to female genitalia in various states of arousal, which seems to be the gist of the story line.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Atrocious performance.

Why did they pick a reader who can't pronounce simple things like "Vosges"? He pronounces it "vos-g-ehs" instead of "voh - zh"
He also doesn't seem to understand the book at all or Houllebecq's humour. Why oh why did they pick this parochial incompetent?

I disliked the performance so much I just couldn't stand to listen any more.

As for the book itself. It isn't Houllebecq's best and that's putting it mildly. Perhaps it would have been better if the main character just jumped out of a window in the 3rd chapter.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

meh trying too much to be Houellebecq!

disappointment when compared to ( atom or primary element ls). he didn't gross me, annoy me, even entertain me enough

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1 person found this helpful