ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE GUARDIAN • MARIE CLAIRE
“From the powerful imagination behind The Water Cure comes a Handmaid’s Tale-esque dip into the fraught choice of motherhood.” —Elle
“[Calla’s] harrowing journey to take charge of her own future wrestles with timely, thought-provoking questions of fate, free will, and bodily autonomy.” —Esquire
“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
“Piercing moments of wisdom and insight . . . drive toward a pitch-perfect ending. . . . Adds something new to the dystopian tradition.” —The New York Times Book Review
“In this dark fable . . . Mackintosh sensitively conveys resonant questions about motherhood, female solidarity, queer love, and bodily autonomy.” —The New Yorker
“Mackintosh keeps the details deliberately vague, intensifying the mood of generalized dread. . . . Blue Ticket is not about whether women should have babies but about what happens to human beings when their ability to choose is denied.”
—The Washington Post
“[Mackintosh’s] style is spare but thoughtful. Every detail enhances the plot and the atmosphere. . . . Mackintosh lays bare many of the fears and realities that face any society’s women.” —Boston Globe
“Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure.” —Literary Hub
“Told with ragged prose that catches the breath, Calla’s journey . . . is marked by a claustrophobia that never stops pressing in from the margins. [An] unsettling reimagining of the anxieties and pressures around motherhood.” —The Irish News
“Mackintosh renders Calla’s internal struggle with deft, lyric precision . . . [and] brings a new sense of pathos to the dystopian novel. . . . A moving and original meditation on freedom, fate, and women’s rage.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] thought-provoking novel about fate, control, and biology.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Mackintosh’s haunting, dystopian tale explores the emotional fallout of forced birth control in a near-future society. . . . [A] tense, visionary drama.” —Publishers Weekly
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