Blue Ticket Audiobook By Sophie Mackintosh cover art

Blue Ticket

A Novel

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Blue Ticket

By: Sophie Mackintosh
Narrated by: Freya Mavor
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.25

Buy for $20.25

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Belletrist's August 2020 Book Pick

"[Mackintosh's] writing is clear and sharp, with piercing moments of wisdom and insight that drive toward a pitch-perfect ending.... 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)

From the author of the Man Booker Prize longlisted novel The Water Cure ("ingenious and incendiary" (The New Yorker)) comes another mesmerizing, refracted vision of our society: What if the life you're given is the wrong one?

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 of desire and riveting in its undeniable familiarity.

©2020 Sophie Mackintosh (P)2020 Random House Audio
Dystopian Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Science Fiction Women's Fiction
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup

Critic reviews

"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)

Featured Article: Best Authors for Fans of Margaret Atwood


Iconic Canadian author Margaret Atwood is more than a beloved novelist, poet, and essayist. She’s also a feminist, environmental activist, and innovator. Atwood examines important themes across many genres, including nonfiction, poetry, dystopian fiction, science fiction, and retellings of mythology. If you've worked your way through all of her stellar audiobooks and don’t know where to go next, here are some listens by authors similar to Atwood for you to enjoy.

All stars
Most relevant  
The idea had great potential, however, the execution fell completely flat. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the “why?”
So many questions have been left unanswered, and now I feel like I’ve wasted a credit. I only managed to finish the book thinking the ending would have a “great reveal,” but instead I’ve been left disappointed.

Missed the mark

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I loved the story and the writing and how close I felt toward Callah. I wanted more for her in the end, but as well as in life, we can't always have what we want.

disappointing ending

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I wish I could give this a sold 4.5. It was a new idea and made me think. Sometimes a bit slow and I wish there was more, but a refreshing story!

Love this type of dystopian book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This was a good/frustrating book. I am a huge fan of Handmaids Tale, Vox, Masterclass, and pretty much anything dystopian with a strong female lead. A major draw to the dystopian genre is the “can I see this happening?” The reader connects with the book because they see how or why the society was formed and it makes them stop and think. Not this one. I could not even pin point what time period it was at first. I would have enjoyed it much better had I known more about how they got to the point of having the lottery. Was there a decline in birth rate? Did a fanatical group take over? How did the neighboring countries know about their system? Is it just their country? Very frustrating.
The main character is hard to like. You still root for her but cannot stand the decisions she makes. The author describes all of her thoughts and actions almost to a point of losing the reader in the scene to unnecessary details. That is why I didn’t understand why there was no backstory.
Overall it was a decent read. The narrator did an excellent job.

Good... but no backstory

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

narrator was fine but wow the story was slow. tons of detail for scenes that had no purpose. i think the concept really had something going for it but ended up dissapointed. the ending want redeeming.

slowwww

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

It was way more than I was expecting- the writing is exquisite and raw. It was heartbreaking and detailed.

Couldn’t stop listening

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I loved story but sad to think women don't have choices. Good read. Great job.

Scary thought

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book was written so well and poetically, I couldn’t have enjoyed it more! Would read or listen to this again 10/10.

ALL MOTHERS & WOMEN MUST READ!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A raw and riveting story that I could not put down. The narration was perfect.

Exceptional.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I really wanted to like this book. It was hard, though, as the writing was a style I highly dislike - disjointed and filled with metaphors and stream of thought ramblings. I also really disliked the main character a lot. She was annoying and made the dumbest choices constantly. I felt bad for her when I was supposed to, but just barely. It’s hard to root for someone who is so hard to like.

Interesting premise, not so great writing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews