I read Natural Beauty a few months ago and really liked it, and I have to say, I love Immaculate Conception.
Exploring themes of art, jealousy, trauma and empathy, I was utterly glued to this moving story.
Ling Ling Huang masterfully blends literary fiction with sci-fi, as our two main characters Mathilde and Enke meet at art school, take different paths as artists, and in the future have the opportunity to collaborate in an unexpected way.
As an artist myself, I found this story so interesting, both in looking at the creative process and also from the point of view of seeing what others have created and admittedly feeling a certain amount of envy for their talents.
Just a wonderful book, and I will now read anything this author writes going forward.

My curiosity was immediately peaked by Immaculate Conception and I was not disappointed. It more than delivers on its unique premise.

A fascinating deep delve into the world and power of art, the scary potential of technology and its consequences, the fine line between intense friendship and obsession and the lengths jealousy can drive a person too.

Completely immersive, compulsively readable, and intensely thought provoking.

I loved the writing style, it's consise yet impactful, and perfectly conveys a trickling sense of unease and dread. The art imagery is outstanding and evocative.

It's a dark, dynamic and effecting read with some unsparing scenes and shocking revelations. Timely it eerily feels not too far away from the world we live in today.

Immaculate Conception is one of those books you put down and just stare at the wall while your brain catches up with you! Brilliantly executed from start to finish!

Highly, highly recommended, I will not stop thinking about this sublime story for a very long time.

“I breathe in, you breathe out”

This book bewitched me with its very unique concept. As an art lover I was captivated by how this was combined with technology so seamlessly in a future which could be. I found it to be beautifully written and the snippets of the changed world you do get are fascinating. I personally think just enough was given, as too much would have taken away from the characters.

As a study on human relationships this was powerful. I can’t help but see this is a warning against the danger of getting everything you think you want. This book, specifically the last part, will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you NetGalley and Canelo for the ARC in exchange for review.

i finished this book in a few days: I was gripped by the world, by the wonderment of Mathilde, but I will have to be honest with myself that the ugliness of Enka’s jealousy, to see how far she was going to take it, kept me hooked. It was terrible to see how Mathilde created art, and it was disgustingly exhilarating to see Enka take it all for herself. IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is also about how art is grotesque, exploitative like a double-edged sword, exposing us by flaying our bellies open to reveal what makes us. This book was excellent in doing so. Thank you for this ARC!

Loved this and read it in almost one sitting - such a compelling narrative! I can't wait to add it to our collections. A brilliant blending of genres to create a novel which will leave you with so many existential questions!

I read Ling Ling Huang's first book, Natural Beauty, a couple of months ago so it's fresh in my mind and it was great to see this one overall a better, more solid one - which is saying something because I really enjoyed Natural Beauty.

There are common themes in both books - technology being the main one, evil corporations, competitive friends... In this one, Enka grew up in a world where people are separated by buffers and grow in communities, either enclaves (nice and posh) or fringes (deprived). Enka comes from the fringe and knows little about enclaves since they don't even have the same internet access, but dreams of being an artist. When she gets a scholarship via a big tech company and joins a fancy art school, she befriends the talented and mysterious Mathilde, a tortured artist whose genius is fueled by her trauma, and by the death of her father.

Compared to the previous book, it has less horror and was more subtle. The characters felt deeper and more complex, and the story had a better pace where I previously thought it was a bit rushed towards the end. I also enjoyed the fact that no one was immediately completely evil and the manevolence of the characters took time to develop. The art world and the art school setting felt convincing as well and her jealousy towards Mathilde was really well described.

This is absolutely not a horror; it’s a sci-fi, lit fic. I obsessively read it in the span of two days.
The sci-fi elements here are really captivating; there are “buffers” that create division between the high society and the more ordinary people, so many ideas and technical innovations. I liked the way things were progressively explained; it’s a lighter sci-fi with not so heavy scientific explanations. The trauma transfer is a very interesting idea, it makes a lot of the plot and besides some immoral aspects it is fascinating to think that something like that could actually be achievable in the future. “The grief, now shared, becomes almost joyous”.
The main character Enka – she was extremely unlikable and boring, she had a great envy of her best friend, who is the better artist and the more interesting character. “Everyone is jealous, but they find a way through it”. But her character is portrait that way exactly because the jealousy is a main theme of the book.
The book is divided in three parts and the third one is the absolutely immaculate, powerful and devastating. It made me feel a lot of things – hatred towards Enka, admiration towards Mathilde, awe of the art world and human imagination, deep sadness and anguish. I recommend you read it and feel at least one of the things I felt.
My negatives are that the story telling was lacking in some aspects – the art is presented very quickly and although it’s original and interesting, we get no glimpses into the process of the ideas being formed or the creating of the art exhibits and performance art. I found the writing style too simplistic and not to my liking. That is why I haven’t finished the previous book by this author; I just don’t like her writing style.
But overall, this is a book that made me feel so much, I could not give it lower than 4 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Canelo for providing me with the ARC.

solid 3.5 stars. y’know i loved “natural beauty” and was really excited for ling’s follow-up. now, having read it, i have a lot of thoughts. most of which i can’t articulate properly, need time to sit with it, to mull over it like a glass of wine.
overall, very original idea and all the conversations around art and technology were fascinating like what constitutes as original art, the whole Caltech generative software being eerily prophetic with everything that’s going on with AI and art. the relationship between the two women was intoxicating but i wanted more, more of the blood under the scab, more of the bruise, more of the bite. wanted more mess and less a clincal approach with a somewhat hopeful ending. i’ve read obsessive female friendship stories before and this one had the potential to be darker, more fucked up, but it remains tame. aside from those critics, i did enjoy the book but not nearly as much as i did with “natural beauty.”

many thanks to netgalley and the publishers for supplying me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.