Enka and Mathilde are art school friends with a close bond. When Mathilde starts to become successful, Enka worries about the strength of their relationship. Enka uses her husband’s new technology to connect her with Mathilde through empathy, where she can inhabit Mathilde’s mind and experience her trauma.

Through this process, it becomes hard for Enka and Mathilde to disentangle from each other. Things go off the rails and lines get blurred. There’s obsession, cloning and question of if our memories and experiences are what makes us who we are. This book brings up a lot of interesting questions.

I think this book is a perfect blend of literary fiction and sci-fi/horror. So, if those are your genres, give this book a try. The characters of Enka and Mathilde were interesting to follow and I was also interested in the supporting characters journeys. I found the writing to be engaging and vivid. I was able to visualize the sci-fi elements of the book.
I would definitely recommend.

Even though not everything about this worked for me (I was expecting more about the enclave vs fringe divide, and also more outright horror), I still found it nearly impossible to put down.

Well folks, the time has come to review Immaculate Conception and the good news is… I liked it! I love to see an author grow and I think that is part of what has made me so happy with this book because so many of the problems I had with Natural Beauty (some weak dialogue, rushed ending, feeling incomplete) were not a problem for me here!

This book was so interesting to me thematically, and I feel like it couldn’t be coming out at a better time considering the firestorm that has been the AI conversation, especially in the wake of the Stuidio Ghibli debacle. There really is nothing better than a book that comes at the right time and makes you think critically about the right subjects.

Immaculate Conception explores themes of artistry, ownership, individuality, technology, friendship, ethics, and more. I’m not going to lie and tell you that you will love all of the characters. You won’t. But you will certainly think and form your own opinions about the actions and reactions of each character involved!

The one thing that I wish had been done better is giving context for why/how things are the way that they are. The world these characters exist in is similar to ours, but there are certainly differences. There are aspects of this book that are not fully fleshed out (I’m talking about the buffers, enclave vs fringe) that I think would have added SO much to the discussion had they just been explored a bit more. I am a bit sad it was left as ambiguous as it was with regards to that.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dutton, and Ling Ling Huang for early access to the ARC. I am so excited to see the discourse that will certainly come from this book!

(4.5) ling ling huang has done it again! i'm so glad this is coming out so soon so I recommend this to every artist I know and anyone with a recent severance-shaped hole in their lives. immaculate conception is a book that feels so perfectly timely- from the conversations surrounding AI, bodily autonomy, socioeconomic division, and so much more, every aspect of the near-future art world setting seems eerily non-dystopian, like something only a step or two further than where we are now. I only wish the world-building and explanations of the technology were a little more developed, and that things were explained more than simply told to us, even as someone who is usually not much of a sci-fi fan. on the other hand, I loved the writing about art and female friendship, and the competition and jealousy from enka's perspective felt very real. I saw myself in the worst parts of enka, and i'm sure many readers, especially other female artists, will feel similarly.

I loved natural beauty and this did not disappoint! thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this e-arc

“What an unbelievable scam it is to get everything you’ve been told to want.”

Another book to add to my list of novels in my favourite genre: Women’s Wrongs. I was crawling out of my skin with existential dread and second-hand anxiety, in this story about jealousy, the political & ethical implications of technology, friendship, and the concept of “originality” in art.

I loved this book SO much. Its themes bore frightening resemblances to Severance, Yellowface, Black Mirror, and Ling Ling Huang’s own Natural Beauty.

Immaculate Conception is set in an aesthetic dystopia: a place where the under-privileged are shielded from the things they can't have, and where the privileged are shielded from witnessing the social consequences of their lives. The burden of envy and the burden of guilt, are both inconveniences muted in a separated world.

Enka's life is dedicated to transcending these invisible barriers. Against all odds, she makes it into a prestigious art school in a new world and becomes entangled in a profound co-dependent friendship with the haunted artistic genius Mathlide.

“From the moment we became friends, she and I constructed ourselves in relation to one another…I only know who I am in relation to her.”

Enka’s love for Mathilde is unwavering. Through the black hole of Mathilde’s trauma, Enka breathes in so that Mathilde can breathe out. An unbroken circle of loyalty and care. But there is also a deep and wretched jealousy that gnaws at the edges of Enka’s love for Mathilde..

When technological advances invade the art world, corrupting and co-opting everything Enka has worked so hard to achieve, Mathilde’s subversive and incomparable work remained untouched by anything but her own trauma.

But there is a way to free them both. A cutting-edge technology may be the bridge between Enka and Mathilde that will heal the black hole of trauma, close the gap between Mathilde’s genius and Enka’s ambition, and allow Enka to inhabit the mind of the person she loves & idolizes most.

This unforgettable story asks us what we would do for success, and what cost we would pay to make our dreams come true..

An all-consuming, feverish 5 stars from me.

This was so good. It’s definetly weird and thought provoking. I could not stop reading this. This author easily turned into an auto buy author for me. I can’t wait to see what they write next.

4 stars

In the age of AI, one must wonder what opportunities for originality are left. Ideally, all forms of art afford individuals the space to express themselves and help others form community and deeper understandings of the human condition. At minimum, humans possess some originality based on the nature of our specific experiences and identities, right?

Huang plays with all of this and so much more in this newest effort, which is utterly chiiling, especially for those of us who are immersed in arts and humanities on the daily. Enka and Mathilde are the platform for this exploration, and what happens to them is both futuristic and somehow seems like it could be happening in a bunker at this very moment. Uncovering exactly WHAT these characters are up to at specific moments is a lot of the fun of this novel, so I'm staying intentionally vague, but this is a thought provoking and in many ways disturbing journey that I both feared and loved.

I have no doubt that I'll be thinking about this book for a long time, and I hope that's because the concept continues to fascinate me rather than because it's becoming a daily reality.

I enjoyed this enough to get in a very long Libby line for Huang's first book, and I'll absolutely be back for the next.

Set in a near future dystopia where social classes are physically separated by invisible barriers, this follows two female artists who develop an unhealthily close relationship that leads to a catastrophic chain of events. I wasn’t liking this much at all until the back half, which really worked for me. Lots of interesting things to say about AI, the ownership of art and how insecurities can influence our creativity.

the way my jaw was on the floor…

i think this book has everything you could want from a reading experience—unlikeable narrator that nevertheless keeps you turning the page, obsessive female friendship charged equal parts by love and jealousy, a science fiction concept of maybe even severance proportions, meditations on art/authority/originality/consent, at times, just plain weirdness and others plain tenderness—but this profuseness makes the novel an ambitious project that almost inevitably starts to leak quality through execution.

if enka’s primary preoccupation is that having everything you could want isn’t enough, then perhaps so is the novel’s. in particular, i am unconvinced of its central relationship; enka and mathilde feel one-dimensional, acting more as respective beacons of greed-ridden envy and tortured, principled genius than real people. as much as i was drawn to every other aspect of the book, i wish this one was given more attention, because it starts to effect the entire project. enka’s background as a “fringe kid” who marries into the wealthiest family on the globe is one that i felt could have been examined more; the plot twist with logan is one that i felt could have been omitted with little consequence, since he barely had a personality to begin with (sorry).

i think also what prevented me from feeling more enthused was huang’s prose, which at times brimmed with poetry and feeling and at others (or even the majority of the time) fell to juvenile tendencies like grocery-list telling, plodding rhythm, and plot clichés. the end of the book felt especially trite, though i suppose if one of its messages is that originality doesn’t exist, it demonstrates it in full.

regardless, i was drawn into huang’s world and have a lot of thoughts about the SCAFFOLD as a concept. i enjoyed huang’s natural beauty for many of the same reasons i enjoyed immaculate conception.which is to say i think she does a very good job at building concepts around themes even if the writing itself at times cannot keep up. recommended for black mirror and severance enjoyers who also have a thing for art school arcs that feature entangled friendships and catastrophe!

3.67/5

Thanks to the publisher for the early access copy via NetGalley!

I wanted to like this so bad. The summary sounded right up my alley--horror to do with possession? Sign me up. But the writing style really fell flat for me. Adore the cover and the overall plot, but I just could not get into it the way I can with horror. I'm not sure if that was a stylistic choice due to the content, but I will say that I did enjoy the obsessive nature of Enka. I get the plot, don't get me wrong, but I wish it had been approached with a different style.

3.5⭐️

I actually read this in one day because IT LITERALLY FELT LIKE A FEVER DREAM.

I finally woke up from said dream and have my nifty typing fingers ready to right out my thoughts.

*Slight Spoilers*

I honestly had no idea what this was going into it and then like 30 pages in I read the synopsis and I think it miss leads you a bit. It makes it sound a bit like a horror book and I’m just waiting for weird things to start happening.

Nevertheless weird things did happen but not as much as I was expecting. This is definitely more a character study and I should have gone in more with that perspective. It talks a lot about artsy people and it made me feel very classy telling everyone what I’m reading about, and of course reading it. The pacing was good, I loved the writing style but I think the rest of the character relationships were neglected. Of course Enke and Matilde’s relationship was not, but I think it would have been better if Enke was able to talk more to other people and then we could see all of the other people she knows around her start leaving her or something because of her downward spiral.

Huang writes beautifully and purposefully. Her prose is clean but at the same time rich with nuance. Immaculate Conception packs a lot - themes of female friendship, art, creativity, identity, technology, and yes, obsession. There's plenty to say about the near-future digital landscape and how it imminently shapes us on a core level, but I think the main focus is on Enke and Mathilde's relationship. They're the focus of the novel and it's through their world that we gain any understanding of both the reality and unreality they live in. A dystopian sci-fi meets literary fiction.

I kindly received an advanced reading copy by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5*

‘Immaculate Conception’ exists at the intersection of literary and science fiction, set in a dystopian future where the invisible boundaries between social classes that limit access to culture, education, and opportunity have been made physical, dividing the population into the privileged ‘enclave’ citizens, and the less fortunate that live in the ‘fringe’.

The book follows Enka, a fringe citizen who has a rare opportunity to study art at university after receiving a scholarship, and becomes friends with Mathilde, the university’s star pupil. As technological advancements change the art landscape and threaten Enka’s work, Mathilde rises to prominence in the art world, and their lives and friendship eventually diverge, before they are brought together once again, setting off an absolutely wild chain of events.

Aside from being a compelling literary fiction on toxic friendship, and the co-existence of fierce love and jealousy, Huang also provides an insightful metaphor for how location can restrict opportunity, advancement and ability to interact with culture, and an interesting portrait of the intersection between art and technology, especially in regards to AI.

Overall, I wholly enjoyed this book and would recommend to any lit-fic fans, especially if you enjoy novels about art such as Woman, Eating or Sirens & Muses, or if you were a fan of dystopian fiction like The Hunger Games growing up!

Thanks so much to Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this but I was HOOKED. I love books with commentary, art, and toxicity and so this truly delivered for me.

I think the writing style made it difficult to fully get into the story, it didn’t initially grip me and took a little to get into the groove with it. But it was SO worth it.

This book was thought-provoking, and I think succeeded in everything it set out to accomplish. Highly, highly recommend!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for this ARC.

I really enjoyed Natural Beauty by Ling Ling so I was excited to read her next book. Immaculate Conception was very interesting and it held my attention.

I did find that some elements of the book confusing at times, but overall I enjoyed this one! Looking forward to what Huang writes next.

A deeply thought provoking book. Ling Ling Huang dives thoroughly into the mind making you question society and art. Huang discusses the harsh toll that creative genius can take on the mind. Huang has many interesting opinions about the future impact of technology on the creative scene.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this early! I am already a big fan of Huang’s work, with Natural Beauty being one of my favorite reads of 2024. This newest novel is equally exceptional! It’s strange in all the best ways and kept me hooked the entire time. Huang is such a talent!

Sympathy is a knife, but empathy - and envy- is the hand that twists it. Huang has taken the impersonal antics of the art world and the dying ethics of corporate technology firms to twist love, desire, and jealousy into a string of horrors that question how pure can passion and ambition be if you're willing to pay any price.

I went into this novel completely blind and I thought it was a solid read. I must admit, I am not a huge fan of the author’s writing style. It was clunky and disjointed. I think if I would’ve enjoyed the prose more then I would’ve bumped up my rating. The plot is what saved this story for me. I like reading about codependent and dysfunctional friendships. The main character is deeply troubled and overly involved in her friend’s personal life. Interesting concept and the ending was very good, but it was still short of brilliance.

4.5 stars

If you loved this author's last book, "Natural Beauty", I think you'll love this newest foray into obsession and the art world.

Main characters Enka and Mathilde meet at art school. Enka is there on a scholarship. Mathilde is already somewhat famous as an artist and Enka is immediately drawn to Mathilde by awe and envy. The story chornicles the lives of these two women as they navigate the world of art, artists, and the elite.

This story appears to take place in an alternate present time, as reference is made to the death of Mathilde's father in 9/11. Society is separated by a type of technology that sets up physical barriers between the haves and the have nots. Enka is a "have not" and is deeply embarrassed by her parents and life before her scholarship. As she grows closer to Mathilde, Enka becomes one of the elite through marriage to the son of an extremely rich and influental family.

I have to admit that I found the main character extremely unlikable, which I believe was intentional. While it was sometimes frustrating to be in the head of someone so intensely flawed and destructive, it did move the narrative in a particular way that was effective. I found the ending of the story somewhat unsatisfying, but I think a certain type of reader is going to love it.

If you like odd stories such as Bunny, Catherine House, and Natural Beauty, I think you'll love this book and I would highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review.