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Serotonin

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Serotonin

By: Michel Houellebecq
Narrated by: John Sackville
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About this listen

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 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

"One cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading Houellebecq's work." (Karl Ove Knausgaard, New York Times)
All stars
Most relevant
I don’t write many reviews, none in fact. This is my first. I had to write this.
What a joy to my mind.
A joy Ye read or hear someone write honestly and cutting through the air of PC.

A joy

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The sexism here is totally unacceptable for 2019. Female characters are poorly drawn and given short shrift. I can’t imagine any female reader enjoying much in this novel. The portrayal of depression is also very inaccurate and could upset readers struggling with mental illness. Perhaps some insight into French politics can be gleaned - but the price is too high !

Terrible unforgivable misogyny

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