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Blue Ticket

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Water Cure

RECOMMENDED READING FOR 2020 by Stylist, Evening Standard, Esquire, Red, Daily Mail, Oprah Magazine, LitHub, and Emma Roberts's Belletrist Book Club

'The cool intensity and strange beauty of Blue Ticket is a wonder - be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes' Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk

'Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh... She's amazing' Stylist, Best Reads of Autumn 2020

Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you children. A blue ticket grants you freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And, once you've taken your ticket, there is no going back.

But what if the life you're given is the wrong one?

Blue Ticket is a devastating enquiry into free will and the fraught space of motherhood. Bold and chilling, it pushes beneath the skin of female identity and patriarchal violence, to the point where human longing meets our animal bodies.

'Dreamlike, tense, compelling, [with] a pitch-perfect ending' The New York Times

'Gripping, ethereal, atmospheric' Sunday Times

'Thoughtful and haunting' Observer

'Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure' LitHub

'Blue Ticket will worms its way under your skin and haunt your dreams' Red

© Sophie Mackintosh 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Dystopian Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh... Blue Ticket gets to the root of women's ambivalence and confusion around becoming mothers set against an unsettling dystopia; she's amazing
Dreamlike, tense, compelling... Blue Ticket adds something new to the dystopian tradition set by Orwell's 1984 or Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale... Piercing moments of wisdom and insight drive toward a pitch-perfect ending
The cool intensity and strange beauty of Blue Ticket is a wonder - be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes (Deborah Levy, author of 'Hot Milk')
Even more hallucinatory and spiralled than her first [novel]... Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure
The Handmaid's Tale as told by David Lynch... A bona fide chase narrative as well as a polyvalent, dream-like allegory of pregnancy and bodily change - not to mention the vortex of judgement that surrounds womanhood... Mackintosh is part of an exciting generation of writers, including Daisy Johnson and Julia Armfield... Blue Ticket stands apart from the crowd (Anthony Cummins)
One of the most disquieting novels I've read in a long time, Blue Ticket will worms its way under your skin and haunt your dreams
Gripping, ethereal, atmospheric... Mackintosh handles haziness deliberately and with poise, demonstrating the near impossibility of trying to articulate or rationalise maternal desire
Mackintosh writes with a language drawn from the body.... Impressionistic and haunting in equal measure (Annabel Nugent)
Visceral, primal, striking... This is a potent exploration of biology and agency, motherhood and childlessness, which confirms [Mackintosh] as a writer of note
Mackintosh is part of a new generation of female writers creating feminist fictions that relate uncannily to our dystopian times... [Her] fiction lives, to an unusual extent, in its musicality, in the rhythm and spareness of its sentences (Claire Armitstead)
All stars
Most relevant
I love the concept, the idea of the tickets determining women's destiny. But there is no explanation as to why anything happens. There is no background, and not even any clues. The main character isn't likeable, and I don't feel you get to know her in the book. Not much character development, and nothing is explained at the end. If this was a series, with more books set in this world, and possibly more explanations, I would like it more, because it's well written and easy to read.

A good concept but a disappointing lack of explanations or character development.

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however it became a bit of a chore towards the end and I think it could have been condensed down a bit more

a good concept

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I will firstly admit this is the first book I’ve used audible for as I normally prefer to read books myself so this could be a factor in my review.

The story was definitely intriguing and the ideas provocative but I’m not completely sold by the character development. The character did develop and change but other than smoking cigarettes and enjoying casual sex I don’t really know the main character. Even as I write this I can’t remember her name.

If you like a book that makes you feel, laugh when they laugh, cry when they cry. This isn’t it. I feel like something is missing, some parts are tragic, some are dangerous but I was never on the edge of my seat or going to sleep at night wondering where the next chapter will take me.

If you’re interested in dystopian novels I’d say go ahead but if I’m honest if someone asked my when I’m reading right now I wouldn’t tell them.

Worth finishing but I don’t think I’ll continue.

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