Blue Ticket

A Novel

by Sophie Mackintosh

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date Jun 30 2020 | Archive Date Jul 14 2020

Sci Fi & Fantasy | Women's Fiction

Talking about this book? Use #BlueTicket #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

From the author of the Booker Prize longlisted novel The Water Cure comes another mesmerizing, refracted vision of our society: What if the life you're given is the wrong one?

"Blue Ticket adds something new to the dystopian tradition set by Orwell’s 1984 or Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale." —New York Times Book Review

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.

Advance Praise

"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 and THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING

"Strange and luminous, beautifully spare and precise: Sophie Mackintosh constructs her disturbing premise with such skill that I found myself forgetting that the world of Blue Ticket is not (quite) our own. A thrilling and nuanced exploration of what it means to follow one’s own longing to the point of destruction and beyond"—ROSIE PRICE, author of WHAT RED WAS

“Blue Ticket manages to be both claustrophobic and expansive, dream-like and heart-stoppingly tense. Lushly textured and stunningly written, you will want to languish in its world for a very long time” —LARA WILLIAMS, author of SUPPER CLUB

“This book left me breathless – it is gloriously subversive in its exploration of motherhood and desire. I'll be pressing it on everyone”

—ANGELA CHADWICK, author of XX

"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 and THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING

"Strange and...