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Almost everyone in the sixth grade at John Jay Jr. High School has received a ticket. Most kids have received a "hot ticket" - an orange rectangle made of cardboard -  as a reward for doing something cool. Some kids have also received "shame tickets," as reminders of their most embarrassing moments. Even dorky Crammit Gibson has a few tickets to his name.  But Juliet Robinson is the only one who hasn't received any tickets at all, and she's sick of it! Obsessed with the idea of the tickets, she becomes determined to find out who the ticket dispenser is - no matter what it takes. But Juliet's pursuit of this mystery has a definite cost. It puts a strain on her relationship with her best friend Lucy, complicates her blooming crush on Crammit, and interferes with her day-to-day life at school.

There were a lot of positive qualities to this book. Juliet's voice was probably the strongest aspect of the story, because of its realism, humor, and honesty. She came across as an authentic middle schooler, and her obsession with the tickets mirrored the social concerns tween girls deal with every day. I also think the concept of the tickets is a stroke of genius. There have been a lot of stories about popularity written for this age group, but the idea of an actual ticketing system is a clever - and cruel - way to highlight who is hot and who is not. The ticketing system gave the author a lot of interesting scenarios to play with, and brought new life to an often overused topic. I also thought the mystery was plotted quite well - I had trouble figuring out who the dispenser was, and I was impressed with the author's use of suspense, which kept me guessing right up until the big reveal.

The story could have used some stronger editing in some places. I don't recall seeing any spelling or grammar errors or anything like that, but there was an overall feeling that the book was not fully polished. Some parts seemed to drag and lost their cleverness and creativity. Other parts just lacked explanation. I was at least halfway through the book before I felt like I had a handle on what the tickets actually were, which was a problem since they figured so significantly into the plot. I would have benefited from a straightforward description of the ticketing system early on in the story that established for the reader what is common knowledge for all the students in the story.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Hot Ticket when the author first offered it as a free download on Smashwords, but I'm glad I took the time to download and read it. My enjoyment of the book far outweighed its flaws. In fact, it reminded me of several other novels and series about middle school that I have read, including the How I Survived Middle School series, the Snob Squad trilogy, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters and Nerd Girls by Alan Lawrence Sitomer. Juliet's interest in Crammit also reminded me of Sonya Sones's novel in verse, What My Mother Doesn't Know. Part of me is disappointed that this book wasn't edited and published by a traditional publishing house, but there is also a significant part of me that likes the idea of people writing, editing, publishing and marketing their own books. Certainly this book did not fit the

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