Blue Ticket
A Novel
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"A beautiful read.” —Heather O’Neill, author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel
From the author of the Booker Prize-longlisted novel The Water Cure comes another mesmerizing, refracted vision of our society: In a world where women can't have it all, don't underestimate the relief of a decision being taken away from you.
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. But her survival will be dependent on the very qualities the lottery has taught her to question in herself and on the other women the system has pitted against her. 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.
An urgent inquiry into free will, social expectation, and the fraught space of motherhood, Blue Ticket is electrifying in its raw evocation and desire and riveting in its undeniable familiarity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mackintosh's haunting, dystopian tale (after The Water Cure) explores the emotional fallout of forced birth control in a near-future society. Once girls begin to menstruate, they go to a lottery clinic and draw a ticket. White means they must bear children; blue means they must use birth control. Calla draws a blue ticket at age 14, and as she becomes a woman, she happily explores her untethered sexual freedom. When she reaches her 30s, she begins wanting a child. Despite her fears that the blue ticket means she is unsuited for motherhood ("Failure to nurture," she imagines a doctor writing on her chart), Calla nevertheless manages to remove her birth control device and becomes pregnant. After her doctor says she must have an abortion, she goes on the run. Calla meets fellow rebel Marisol, and the two women become lovers while holed up in a deserted cabin, determined to give birth before they're caught by the authorities. Mackintosh serves up vivid details of Calla's psychological ordeal in the language of body horror ("I was the chicken I opened up one day only to discover that the stomach had been left in by mistake"), and convincingly conveys Calla's and Marisol's desperation. This tense, visionary drama is a notable addition to the growing body of patriarchal dystopias.
Customer Reviews
Water Cure
A confusing read and First book I decided to stop reading. My daughter recommended again, so I resumed and enjoyed the ending.