Blue Ticket: A Novel, Sophie Mackintosh, author; Freya Mavor, narrator
The reader will enter a dystopian world in which Calla comes of age, becomes a woman, and, is required, like all girls, to take part in a lottery. Each girl is given either a blue ticket or a white ticket. She will wear the ticket in a locket, thereafter. It defines her life. Girls look forward to this lottery which tells them what lies ahead for their future. The white ticket girls will be allowed to bear children. The blue ticket holders may not. White ticket holders will marry and have families. Their future lies in motherhood. Blue ticket holders do not have families, they may choose careers. Calla’s locket will hold a blue ticket, but Calla is a free spirit and is restless. She wants more from life than what is promised to her. Regular visits to the doctor are required. She tells him she is content, but she is not. Records have been kept on her since birth, and she believes they know more about her than she does about herself, but she wonders why they decided she should not be a mother. What is she lacking? She feels the decision to give her a blue ticket should be reversed, but that is impossible. When she decides to defy the system, she removes the device implanted in her to prevent pregnancy. When she becomes pregnant, she hopes her boyfriend will join her in her plan to escape, but he refuses. She confesses her situation to her doctor. He offers to end the pregnancy and let her go back to her life. She refuses. Calla wants more freedom and independence. She does not want anyone telling her what to do. She resents the doctor’s remoteness and coldness as he discusses her dreams and frustrations, but she needs him to keep her balanced although she dislikes his emotional distance. Why are men freer than women? Why do they have more power to choose their futures? Calla also wants to be able to choose her own future. She wants to decide whether or not to have a child, whether or not to be a parent. She decides to try and run away alone. She knows that somewhere there is a border she can cross that will take her to freedom. On the other side, she can have a different life. It is a place where she can live without having her future preordained. Most people liked having the stress of decision making removed, but most people also didn’t know about opportunities beyond their color ticket and so were content to stay that way. Calla is not. When Calla starts out she has no idea where she is going. Her escape route takes her to unknown places. She meets a woman called Marisol, and they become lovers. They are both pregnant. They rescue other women also seeking the border. How will their stories end? Will they escape? Will they be betrayed? Whom will they betray? How will they survive? They have to hide in plain sight. Calla has no idea what will happen to her. She hopes for the best, although she fears the worst. Citizens set upon those that break the rules. Emissaries enforce the rules and bring them back for justice.Calla’s quest to survive and bear a child is the crux of the novel. Her escape is fraught with danger. Betrayal is very common as opportunities for breaking out of the assigned preordained mold are rare and frowned upon. Everyone is expected to obey the rules and to be grateful for their lottery ticket. Those who try to escape are desperate because everyone is a possible enemy. Once the women betray the authorities, how hard is it to envision them betraying each other? Is there really an escape route? Will they make it? Why were the women so ruthless? Why were men able to make their own decisions? The novel had the feel of a young adult novel, to me, but I enjoyed it. If it was a young adult novel, it would be a crossover, and perhaps it would have an even broader audience, although the language was often crude, and that seemed unnecessary.