"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 marriage and children. A blue ticket grants you a career and 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?

When Calla, a blue-ticket woman, begins to question her fate, she must go on the run. Pregnant and desperate, Calla must contend with whether or not the lottery knows her better than she knows herself—and what that might mean for her child. With Blue Ticket, Sophie Mackintosh has created another mesmerizing, refracted vision of our world that explores the impossible decisions women have to make when society restricts their choices."
Looking forward to reading.

When I requested this book I didn’t understand how Netgalley worked and it expires almost immediately. Thanks nonetheless both to Netgalley and penguin for access to this book regardless of how fleeting.
Now, several years later, I have borrowed it from the library and finished reading the book.
The story follows Calla, a blue ticket woman who is not allowed to have children but wants nothing more than to have a child. It follows her journey and she get pregnant and is ostracized from her society, sent on the run, and attempts to find a safe place to have her child.
I really wanted to like this book
It’s the opposite of the handmaids tale where only some women are allowed to have children and the main character is not but really wants one
I think where this novel really failed for me was the philosophical underpinnings. We never really know why only some women are allowed to have children and why they have instituted this lottery. I also struggled with the fact that they used iuds to prevent pregnancy in this world. While I understand this works for the story because the characters can remove them, I feel that if a society was really committed to only some women having children they would sterilize the women who wouldn’t.
I really liked the characters and they had good development but I’m just so stuck on how this society works I can’t get past it.

Whew this book. So, this is one of the reviews where I’m going to say, this book is not for everyone. And I’ll be upfront and say it should have a content warning for miscarriage/stillbirth. And of course, there is some discussion of pregnancy, and parenthood and what that means in a world where choice is taken away from women. So, I definitely recognize these topics are upsetting for some people, and I want y’all to protect yourselves.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s the kind of disturbing, real, and painful book that really appeals to me. It also employs an informal and different story-telling structure, that I thought worked well to create a personal and intimate atmosphere. It reads more like a journal and definitely slows down in places. Despite this, I found it difficult to put down, and was definitely very drawn into the story.

Calla is an interesting and contrary character. It’s not very clear why she wants to be a mother, whether it’s just because she’s been told she can’t, or if there is something that she feels is missing and thinks that having a child will fill that void. Regardless, she’s a rebellious and kind of grey character, and y’all know me, I love that. Overall, I thought she was well written, and it was interesting to try to get into her head and figure out her choices. I especially enjoyed her relationship with Dr. A. It was bizarre in an intriguing way.

So in terms of recommending this book, I’m more gonna say who I don’t recommend it for. Mainly, if you need detailed world-building, or aren’t a fan of non-traditional story structure, or books that are at their core kind of bleak… I would pass on this one. Otherwise, if you tend to enjoy grey protagonists and a different, but voicey structure, give it a go for sure.

The most alarming thing about books like this is how real and relevant they feel today. While the idea is extreme, it is no where near as outlandish to be,I’ve it could happen.

When women have their first period they draw tickets. Blue tickets can not have children. White tickets will be wives. A patriarchal society where women’s bodies and the outcomes of their lives are overseen by men. Sound familiar?

This book was so emotional for me to follow our MC while she tries to survive and evade capture while running with a baby that should not be alive. I felt so much pain for the journey taken and the outcome.

Well done. I enjoyed it.

Blue Ticket pulled me in with a fantastic cover, an interesting beginning, and beautiful writing, but I ended up being a bit disappointed. I don’t feel like this book said anything new or different than other dystopian books with similar storylines and themes and it lacked the world building that make dystopian novels so chilling. I finished reading it this afternoon, but already had to look at the last chapter to remind myself of how it ended, which just goes to show how forgettable it is for me.

Interesting premise. I wanted a bit more of the backstory for the other characters. Heartbreaking ending, inevitable given the characters' motivations. Handmaid's Tale genre, would have benefitted from a quick synopsis of how this world came to be. Why nothing similar for male children? Why the initial trip through the woods? Thank you for the preview copy. Will be going to Sophie Mackintosh's backlist.

Much like The Water Cure, Blue Ticket is one of those books that is difficult to review. You can't explain the experience of reading it- it is something you have to discover for yourself. The narration is unique and takes some getting used to, but I found it highly effective and adds to the heavy atmosphere of the story.

What is so shocking about Macintosh's work is that her stories do not seem so farfetched, and that is more terrifying than anything.

When I read The Water Cure last year, it quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. So getting approved by NetGalley to read this was super exciting.

This book is set in a futuristic dystopian society where women, once they have their first period are taken to a center and draw a ticket. If they draw blue they don't have to go through the shame of having a child and have a procedure where an IUD is placed. They are then to journey to a city of their choosing to get an education and a job away from their parents. If they draw white they are taken away in a car where they will become a wife and eventually have children.
The men in this society can choose at any time if the want to fool around with a blue ticket girl or later on in life settle down with a white ticket girl and have children.
The women don't get to choose.

In this book we follow Calla, a blue ticket girl who traveled to the city when she was 13, experiencing a Hunger Games like experience on her travels. Calla has had many casual sexual relationships with men and women, none of them have been fulfilling, she feels like something in her life is missing and so she turns to alcohol and drugs to dampen this unexplainable feeling. Eventually, she figures out what it is she wants- a baby. And so she takes drastic measures by removing her IUD on her own and purposefully getting pregnant by a man she really likes and who she mistakingly believes will make her his wife.
But soon things become dangerous for Calla as her therapist soon discovers that she is pregnant- something that is illegal for blue ticket women and it's strongly encouraged for her to get an abortion. Soon an emissary shows up at her door, she has to go on another survival like trip again, this time evading authorities who will likely take her baby away.
Calla deals with both the pregnancy and the danger she encounters on the road as she fights for survival while trying to make her way to the border so she can go and have her baby and live out her life the way she wants to. Soon Calla encounters Marisol, another pregnant woman on the run making her way to the border, they become close, developing a romantic relationship in the process while also helping out all the other pregnant girls they encounter on the road. Together they make a run for the border, but Calla is in labor which alerts people in the area and soon the authorities arrive and take Calla and her baby away. She faces a shocking betrayal and discovers that the ticket system isn’t what it's purported to be.

—

Overall I really enjoyed this book and the themes it explores. It's like a reverse Handmaid’s tale.
I enjoyed the writing so much, it's beautifully lyrical. I really enjoyed the characters and the f/f romance between Calla and Marisol.

4 stars.

**ARC provided by Penguin Random House Canada via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I really loved this dystopian read! The lack of control experienced by the women in this story reminded me of the plight of the women in The Handmaid's Tale. In both stories the women's choices were taken away forcing them to conform to rules set by those in power. I found the main character especially compelling . The ending was different than I was expecting but it made sense in relation to the story. I would definitely read more books by this excellent author!

In Blue Ticket once girls get their first period they become part of a “lottery” and receive either a white ticket which means they’ll get married and have children or a blue ticket, which is supposed to grant a career and freedom, but more or less means they get an IUD and aren’t allowed to be mothers. Obviously, the lottery leaves women wanting the option they can’t have and some fight for a different fate.

We never find out why women and their bodies are so policed in this society. Population control, maybe? Why do the young kids all have to go on a survival journey? Why is everyone so uneducated about health and their bodies (there’s a lot of smoking, drinking, and lack of pregnancy knowledge.)

It was an interesting read, but it left me with more questions than answers. I didn’t dislike it, but if left me wanting more.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for this e-copy.

I loved "The Water Cure" and was really looking forward to Sophie Mackintosh's second novel. I think it's good, but not as good as I had hoped it would be. I do love Mackintosh's writing style -- it is concise and evocative, and always clear. However, in this case, the narrative could have been shorter, even though the symbolism and themes are all well developed. While I don't think an author needs to spell everything out, there is a lot that is unsaid here, like why the fathers are the ones pushing the prams or who the emissaries are. Finally, I think that the subject itself was a little too close to Mackintosh's first novel. She is clearly passionate about women's issues, but I hope she does something a little different next time.

This book was honest, bleak, but strangely beautiful because of the different perspectives about the desire to be a mother pitched against the desire to not want to be one played out in a dystopian or speculative world.

This book was very appealing right off the bat. I'm not sure if its because it has been a long time since I have read a dystopia type novel, or because of how interesting the story was and how well it was written, but regardless I really enjoyed the concept of this story. It starts with our main character Callis living with her father. Then when she starts her menses she is suddenly whisked away with other girls her age to receive her lottery ticket. She will either get a blue or a white ticket and that will determine her roll in life and it is unchanging. She receives a blue ticket gets painfully inserted with an IUD and gets to live her life of choice and freedom however childless, while the white ticket girls are able to produce children. It is when our main character receives her ticket however she decides that this is not the life that she wants. Very interesting concept of a story the only thing I wasn't a big fan of was our main character, something about her just seemed off and made her hard to connect with. Which was pretty weird considering how I usually fall right into these types of stories, I did find myself putting it down a bunch, I think it was because all of the dialog didn't have quotation marks so as a reader I find that makes the story very hard to follow. I also found the main character a little hard to relate to. It wasn't until I was about half way through the story before I really became involved. That is when the story and the characters really jumped off the page. While there were things that could have been better about this story it wasn't the worst and there were parts that I really enjoyed I just wish that there were more of them.

I enjoyed this book! I had read the description a while back and was immediately drawn to how different it sounded. A very cool concept. I wished for a bit more closure in the end but at the same time it really fit with how the story went.
Thanks Netgalley! I will recommend this book to my friends.

Thank you Netgalley, Sophie Mackintosh, and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC.

I always want to start with something nice about any book I have agreed to review. Some of the prose in this book was interesting. The author is not without talent.

However, I usually try to read more then 10% of a book before I review it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it this time. This month, while everyone in the world is confused or scared about Covid 19, is not a good month to be releasing something so dreary. I realize, however, that release dates for books are set ahead of time, and this could not be avoided.

It may be that this type of story is too nihilistic for my taste anymore. From what I could gather, this book is for people who enjoy a sparse prose, and who have been used and abused and haven't yet healed. This might help people to not feel so alone, though on the other hand it is very dark and might encourage wallowing. According to some of the other reviews, no light is ever injected into the story.