Have you ever read a book where you had such a strong emotional response to it, that you really can’t be sure if you loved it or hated it? I am over a week out from finishing this book and I still can’t stop thinking about it.
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Thank you so much to @doubledaybooks for the gifted review copy of Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh. This book is dystopian and while compared often to The Handmaids Tale, is something different entirely.
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In this book we see the World through the eyes of Calla. We experience everything from her inner monologue, which makes this book extremely intimate and uncomfortable as as she comes of age in this dystopian imagining of US society. The book starts with Calla coming of age(or getting her period for the first time), and her father taking her to the cities station to participate in The Lottery. There are only two possibilities, a white ticket which hold the promise of marriage and children, or a blue ticket which grants you a childless future with a career and a certain amount of freedom. Calla is a blue ticket. At first she believes what everyone says, that this is good, this is a gift. The book then goes on to follow Calla as she questions the lottery and the future she was given. You get to see what happens when women chose for themselves despite the laws and protocols that dictate society.
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This book is unlike any I have read before. I loved the originality of it, and the way that the book explored women’s roles in society. I can’t say much about the plot following the beginning without spoilers. I will say this though, the end infuriated me. I was so upset, but the more I think about the end and my reaction, I think that may have been the point or the authors intention. It didn’t go at all the way I thought it would. I can’t say I loved this book, but I can say that it’s one I won’t forget. Definitely a strong novel about free will and what happens when it is taken away or manipulated.
