Enka meets Mathilde in art school and quickly falls in platonic love. While Enka struggles to create innovative work, Mathilde’s installations are genius—and the wider art world agrees. Enka marries rich and mostly leaves her career aspirations behind, while Mathilde becomes contemporary art’s it girl. The two fall largely out of touch, in part because of Enka’s jealously, but when Mathilde’s most daring project to date goes horribly wrong and she goes missing, it’s Enka who tracks her down. Neither woman realizes how enmeshed their worlds are about to become.

Wow, I loved this one. The author skillfully blends sci-fi and satire to skewer the contemporary art world while beautifully portraying the complexities of female friendship. If you’ve ever been jealous of a friend or colleague, you might be slightly horrified by how relatable you find this book. The art installations and technological innovations in this story border on outrageous, and yet they feel like heightened versions of real-world trends. This novel was absolutely stunning, with a twist at the end that I loved. I definitely recommend this one!

What would you do to become the best version of yourself? What if that best version of yourself was actually you becoming someone else?

Enka and Mathilde become best friends in art school after Enka saves Mathilde's life. This interaction jumpstarts Enka's obsession with the mysterious Mathilde and her artwork. Every piece or performance art she creates is everything that Enka could ever want - why can't she be as creative and successful as Mathilde? In her pursuit of trying to find her calling in art, which originally revolved around technology, she decides to volunteer for a huge tech company known for their human cloning and gene altering projects. While entangled in this company, Mathilde only becomes more and more famous and respected for her boundary breaking performance arts causing Enka to fall deeper into depression.

After Mathilde goes missing, Enka is put in a strange predicament. From there, we'll follow Enka to uncover family secrets, eerie technological advances, unexpected heartbreak, and the opportunity to become the artist she's always wanted to be.

Ling Ling Huang is a master of bringing light to the dark side of society. Natural Beauty is one of my all time favorite books and this follow up did not disappoint in the slightest. With themes of jealousy, class, morality, technology, and so much more, you're sure to have a lot to reflect on after immersing yourself in this dark reality.

100% recommend. And if you're feeling like the first half if slow, I promise the second half makes it all worth it.

Thank you so much to Dutton & Netgalley for the ARC! Rounded up from a 4.5,

It took me quite a while to get through this book, but I've already found myself referencing some of the central topics of the story over and over again in conversation. The blurring of lines between collaboration and corruption, the creation or experience of art in the era of AI, and the ethics of making decisions for someone with the greater good in mind—Ling Ling Huang (again) has managed to pose so many clever questions against a backdrop of a freaky near-future world. I love her writing, and I am endlessly fascinated by the topics she explores; with Natural Beauty and Immaculate Conception, she's easily become an auto-buy author for me.

Thank you to Dutton for the opportunity to read and review!

My absolute favourite read of the year!! An excellent exploration of a very real dystopian future and an extremely complex female friendship that I could not help but be obsessed with. Ling Ling Huang kills it as usual!

I was sucked into Immaculate Conception by the art school theme, but I stayed for the science fiction flare. The book was denser than I was anticipating, but it was also much more complex in terms of the themes and ideas that it brought up. I think that it would make a really great book for a book club, because all I wanted to do after I finished it was to talk to someone else who had read it.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised by the sci-fi aspect, which took artistic jealousy and co-dependent friendship to a new level. The pacing of the book was a bit uneven but the premise was original and the art imaginative. I am a new fan of this author and will be looking to read her other book.

Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang

Rating: 2/5

Immaculate Conception follows Enka, a struggling artist who becomes entangled in an obsessive friendship with Mathilde, a rising star whose talent (and trauma) looms large. Their bond begins in the halls of art school but quickly spirals into something much darker—especially after Enka marries into immense wealth and gains access to an experimental technology that allows her to literally absorb Mathilde’s pain.

On paper, this is a wildly original novel. It grapples with complex themes: artistic ownership, emotional voyeurism, the ethics of technology, and the blurry borders of female friendship. But in practice, it reads more like a conceptual sketch than a fully realized story.

Enka, our narrator, is frustratingly opaque. Her voice falls flat, even as she makes increasingly disturbing decisions—and while that may be intentional, it left me feeling disengaged. Several moments seem designed purely to shock, which may explain why I struggled to feel emotionally invested, even as the stakes escalated.

The relationship at the core of the book—Enka and Mathilde’s codependent friendship—had the potential to be complex and cutting, but it’s rendered in such vague, impressionistic strokes that it’s hard to understand what really binds them, let alone what drives Enka to such extremes. The tech element, while interesting in theory, felt underdeveloped and rushed in execution.

While there are flashes of sharp insight and some beautifully strange sentences, I never found myself fully invested in the characters or their story. As a fan of Huang’s debut novel, Natural Beauty, I’m still eager to see what she writes next.

Thank you to @netgalley and @duttonbooks for the digital ARC!

HUGEEEE thank you to the publisher for the ARC.

This was picked as our May book club read for AAPI Month, and even though the release date didn’t align, I still dove in—and wow, there’s a lot to unpack already.

Right away, the story opens with a tone that’s eerie and unsettling. One character definitely gave off some creepy energy (side-eye fully activated ). However, beneath that discomfort is a layered, thought-provoking narrative that’s drawing me in.

What I loved:

-The contrast between Mathilde and Enzo—poor vs. privileged in art school
-Symbolism and flashbacks that deepen their relationship to art and identity
-Honest explorations of mental health, self-harm, and self-image
-Beautiful integration of cultural elements like noh plays
-An art school setting that feels immersive and specific
-The author’s style is rich and descriptive, which fits the story’s art focus perfectly

There’s a quiet tenderness forming between characters that I’m watching closely, but the unsettling undertones had me invested.

Thank you Dutton and NetGalley for the DRC of Immaculate Conception! All opinions in this review are my own.

I feel like this book is a fever dream. While I admit I don't think I fully understood what was happening at all times, the story completely drew me in and made it impossible to put it down! Immaculate Conception reminds me of Yellowface in the sense of the main character using her "friend" to create better art.

I have had Natural Beauty by the same author sitting on my shelf for years and I can't wait to start reading it since Immaculate Conception was so good!

This is what I like to see!! The last half of this- when it fully leans into the premise of toxic closeness, obsession, and ambition- is so good. A decent amount of setup introduces us to this faintly dystopian world, but I appreciated the slow unfurling of difference from our world vs. an info dump.

Mathilde's otherworldiness could have easily lent itself to parody, but I felt Huang trying to create the distance between friends who find themselves on wildly different life paths, especially when one friend is envious and spiteful. The first person narration does a lot to obfuscate the actual darkness of this book, and I think I just wanted it spelled out more.

That said, I love books about artists, queer obsession, and the darkest parts of humanity. So good. (less) [edit]

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is packed to the brim with big ideas, all of them interesting and teeth-gnashing and entirely messed up, and I think Huang generally succeeds in keeping all those threads tied together. It's a book with a lot to say about art and AI and elitism, yes, but my favorite is how the story oscillates thematically between human connection and distance/numbness, and the uncomfortable path from the exploitation of the former to the latter.

Despite this—and the fact that this book contains one of my favorite themes, obsession as a dark side of humanity—I found it more intellectually stimulating than emotionally engrossing, which is a major enjoyment killer for an emotional reader like me. I don't regret reading this, and I see why so many other readers have such positive things to say about it, but it was ultimately underwhelming as a reading experience.

Rating: 🤷🏼‍♀️ (it was fine; 3.5 rounded down)

Thank you to Dutton (Penguin Group) and Netgalley for the advance copy of this title.

Easily one of my top reads of 2025, Immaculate Conception is one of the most original novels I have *ever* read; I was simply astounded by the depth of creativity in this book. From the dystopic plot to the well-developed characters and their complicated relationships, Ling Ling Huang has created a story that is both highly inventive and also a page-turner. The questions posed by the author throughout this book (particularly those regarding generative AI, ownership of art, and the role of technology in creative endeavors) are especially relevant today.

Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for my advanced copy.

Haunting and Unhinged in All the right ways.

Reading Immaculate Conception is like letting a glass unicorn walk across your ribcage, beautiful, a little painful, and by the end, you’re not sure if something’s broken or just rearranged.

Ling Ling Huang (yes, the sorceress behind Natural Beauty) dives headfirst into the cruel glitter of the art world and emerges with something cold, wet, and softly rotting in her hands: a story of obsessive female friendship, parasitic love, and mind-hijacking technology sold with TED Talk sincerity.

Our protagonist, Enka, is a bit like if The Talented Mr. Ripley went to RISD. She meets Mathilde, gorgeous, tormented, likely allergic to happiness—and the two spiral into that kind of all-consuming best-friendship that feels more like falling into a fever than falling in love. It’s queer in the way that art school friendships often are: unspoken but devastatingly felt.

And then comes the tech. Oh, the tech. It’s empathy-enhancing, trauma-absorbing, "what-if-you-could-bleed-for-her" science, funded by a billionaire Enka conveniently marries. (Women will literally marry into dystopia rather than go to therapy.) What starts as admiration curdles into something more like identity theft, with vibes.

Huang writes with a scalpel dipped in perfume. Her prose is lush and unflinching, the kind that makes you feel a little feverish, a little watched. She skewers the art world, late-stage capitalism, and our hunger for connection so precisely it hurts. There are sentences in this book that made me wince like I had just remembered an old text I shouldn't have sent. By the end, I didn’t know who I pitied more, Enka, Mathilde, or myself for ever thinking I knew the difference between devotion and delusion.

Verdict:
If Frankenstein and Persona had a baby and raised it on performance art and biotech start-up money, you'd get Immaculate Conception. Read it if you’ve ever loved someone so much you wanted to unzip their skin and wear it. Avoid it if you're currently in a friendship that’s already teetering. You might not come out clean.

Early Style

So I'm not loving this as much as NATURAL BEAUTY, which hurts me a little.

I'm not sure if I'm bored or enamored by Enka and Mathilde yet. Could be gayer. However, the way Enka talks about Logan gives me dating PTSD, although most things do these days. Attacked.

Middle Style

I'm already more interested in this section. I'm glad it holds promise.

I will admit the past vs. present was confusing me earlier, but now I'm semi-invested. Mathilde has developed something that transcends art. She has birthed a baby without sperm. The Vatican is horrified. I'm amused.

Well, holy shit. (view spoiler)

Late Style

The pacing of this book feels off. EARLY STYLE was slow. Too slow. We learned a few things in MIDDLE STYLE, so that went faster and was more enjoyable.

This felt too fast? The high point just came and went. Are we about to be brought back down?

Retrospective

I'm still mad about the pacing. And the overall "horror" of the book. Even if it's the horror I've come to expect from East Asian diaspora authors, which I usually know and love. But, I'll continue to read Ling Ling.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton

Could your friendship last if you had access to their memories? Enka and Mathilde have an interesting dynamic. They’re each artists, so of course their relationship is borderline obsessive, intense, and occasionally pretentious. Enka adores Mathilde. Her art is one of a kind. Enka is also jealous of Mathilde. She’s never seemed to be able to create something so wonderfully original, controversial, or intense. When Enka’s husband offers a piece of new technology where Enka can see and experience Mathilde’s trauma in an attempt to absorb some of it and lessen the blow, Enka jumps on it. But, she might also have other benefits as well.
I really, really enjoyed this. This first half of the book is fairly slow, but the last half packs such a punch that it kind of makes up for it. I loved so much of this. The character analysis is intriguing and also heart breaking at some points. This is truly an exploration of two women throughout their friendship as they grow their relationship, explore art, attempt to compete with ever advancing technology, and so much more. There is so much incredible commentary throughout the book, which I adore.

GENRE: lit fic/sci-fi
VERDICT: I loved it!
MOOD: 🤨🤯🫣😧

A haunting blend of art, technology and identity. This book really makes ya think.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION explores so many fascinating and layered concepts and it's so unsettling at times...but I simply could not look away! It’s a dark take on the future of AI, especially in how it intersect with art, creativity and originality. It also explores the themes of jealousy & obsession and how the influence of privilege and wealth subtly guide/divide us.

Being in Enka’s head was something else; her codependency and competitiveness with Mathilde was intense and ultimately drove the story in a direction I didn't see coming. I also have to say — this would make an incredible Black Mirror episode.

What you can expect/read if you like:
🎨 artistic ambition and inspiration
📱 ethical conversations about advancing technology
🧠 speculative fiction + dystopian settings
💥 blurred lines of identity and toxic friendships
❔ morally grey characters

This is an instance where I’m so glad I picked up a book based on it's over. Ling Ling Huang’s writing is original and absorbing. I’ll be thinking about this novel for a long time and can’t wait to see what she does next. And I'll definitely be reading NATURAL BEAUTY in the meantime.

This book asks a lot of interesting questions, I won't really get into it in detail to avoid spoilers, but it does make you sit there and think for a while.

🎨 the intrusion of Ai and its exploitation of artists'
🎨 Nature vs. Nurture.
🎨 the ethics of advancing technology.
🎨 is it friendship and love or jealousy and manipulation.
🎨elitism and wealth inequality.

🤯🤯🤯There was a twist in here I did not see coming 🤯🤯🤯

I also think this would make a fantastic Black Mirror episode.

❗️This would of been 5 stars BUT I took a star off for the pacing, it was a little too slow and inconsistent at times and even though it was an engaging read and I enjoyed the story as a whole I think it took a little too long to get to the SCAFFOLD plot.

📖 Read this if you enjoy: art, technology, obsession, grief, trauma, intense codependent relationships, blurred lines of friendship, frayed boundaries, slow burns, dystopian, litfic/speculative/scifi, thought provoking stories.

✨️quotes✨️

"All I'm trying to say is, I didn't concent to being healed."

"If jealousy was a well, I'd never reached the bottom, hadn't realized the well was a tunnel to the mother of envy, which is awe."

"What an unbelievable scam it is to get everything you've been told to want."

Many thanks to Netgalley & PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for sharing a digital copy. as always, opinions are my own.

Set in a dystopian future, there is a difference between the privileges of an enclave person, and the starker life of the fringe. One's classification determines how much of the internet can be utilized, and what limitations are placed on people's lives.
Enka is a college student, majoring in art. She is limited by the artificial divisions and boundaries of the time because she is a "fringe". She is not part of the student elite and watches from the sidelines.
Mathilde, another student, is totally immersed in her art. Emma notices the differences between herself and Mathilde, who receives opportunities , compliments and endless encouragement to succeed. She feels " less than" because she is not part of the enclave elite. It is a social classification that limited Enka's access to resources and knowledge, that makes her road to success an upward climb. It is not a reflection of her capabilities or mindset or the interest invested in her studies. The classification covers the whole family, and every person in the dystopian times. She is not an enclave; she is a fringe and she feels it. Even though the girls are "friends", the differences set the mood for envy , jealousy, and desire for recognition.
This novel embodies the dystopian world of artificial intelligence in a cold, biased future and satirized what is important to us in all its hidden meanings. No wonder Enka feels jealousy and envy. Her future has been set by her designation, not her talent.
In presenting something so engineered, the self loses its shine and our individuality loses focus. Our humanity lacks meaning, leaving the soul to ask whether our interactions with others are something that we ourselves should pursue. For what?
I found this book disconcerting and questioned the concept of sharing ourselves in a negative world that strips a person of his or her humanity and individuality. Their world functions more like a cult in its execution. How concerning.
The kind of envy that engenders destroys " love", shared values and opportunities and minimizes our very existence.
It turns our intentions sideways.
I took several moments to think about the message behind the words. Which is an easier path? To envy or admire, to rejoice or to stew? Enka' s entire outlook in life was skewed and affected her choices. To love or to possess...That is the question. Not a world I would be happy in indeed.
Read it and take a moment to yourself. An interesting look at how society can evolve.
Thank you to the author and publisher for the ARC copy. All opinions are my own.

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I'm not sure if I "loved" this book. I found the writing style striking, and the story engaging at times, but overall found it to be kind of a slog. I think there's a lot of "telling" over "showing", which dragged the pacing down a fair amount, and made me feel always just outside of being invested.

The themes in here are timely and carefully crafted, so I hope it continues to find its readers!

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity.

This was a really good read and I think it had a decent writing style and story! Would recommend to anyone looking for next read