What Does It Mean to Be Obsessed? A Review of Immaculate Conception
What would Mathilde do, or think, or say?
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang is haunting as it explores some of our most basic human emotions—jealousy, obsession, and empathy. It does so against a backdrop of technological advancement and societal fracture, which feels eerily real given present circumstances. It forces you to confront the question: What happens when power, technology, and the human condition collide?
Reading this novel brought me back to my undergrad years, when I was fully consumed by the art world—spending hours buried in niche articles and writing papers on the most obscure artists I could find. I became particularly entranced by Hieronymus Bosch, whose chaotic, addictive works mirrored the layered, unsettling world Huang constructs here—a world teeming with beauty, madness, and moral decay.
Huang masterfully dissects the complexities of jealousy and competition, especially in a society defined by the stark divide between the haves and the have-nots. The novel taps into our collective anxieties about the future: the erosion of empathy, the impulse to erase trauma, and the dangerous allure of technological “solutions” to deeply human problems. It also confronts the corrupting nature of power—how easily those who claim to know what’s best for humanity can lose their own humanity in the process.
HOWEVER!!! At its core, this is a story about friendship—about connection, boundaries, and the thin line between admiration and obsession. It reminded me of the unsettling introspection of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and the sharp commentary on envy and ambition found in Yellowface.
What does it mean to be jealous? To be consumed by longing and comparison? And can technology ever replace the raw, messy emotions that make us human? Huang offers no easy answers, but her novel lingers with you—an echo of chaos, power, and feeling.