Book Review: Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Title: Shut Out

Author: Kody Keplinger
Series: N/A
Pages: 273
Publisher: Poppy
Date of Publication: 5th September 2011
Source: Borrowed from Lesley at My Keeper Shelf via UK Swap Shop
Synopsis from Goodreads: Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part, Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention.

Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: she and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.

THIS REVIEW IS QUITE SPOILERY! Sorry, but I needed to explain what happened and how they made me feel and what they made me think, and I couldn't do that without saying what happened... So DON'T read on if you plan on reading it!

My Thoughts:
I really really LOVED this book. WAY more than I thought I would. The synopsis sounded really interesting, and having never read anything like it ever before, I thought I'd give it a go. I wasn't expecting amazing things, so I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading. It was AWESOME.

Lissa is tired of being her boyfriend's booty call, always second best. Randy, her football quarterback boyfriend, is always caught up in the rivalry between Hamilton High's football and soccer teams, and Lissa wants it to stop. So she and all the other girlfriends of the soccer and football teams make a pact - a pact to go on a sex strike.

When I first read that, I was like, 'Why would you want to read that? It's really weird.' But I thought about it a little more, and realised that I really wanted to read it, and see what it was all about. And it was really interesting to read about - not much happened in the book itself, but it made me think so much, about what it means to be in a relationship, and about when is the right time to stop something because it's got too far. And not that any of what happened in the book was really all that relevant to me because I'm 14 and British, but the hidden meanings in the book really did.

For example, towards the end of the book, when the strike was coming to an end, Lissa was adamant not to stop it, because she couldn't realise that her plan had worked. When the boys all got together to try and stop the girls' strike, it was them working TOGETHER which was what Lissa wanted, but she didn't realise because she was too fixated on herself, and on Cash to notice. It really made me think about how you need to know when to stop - and not just in a relationship, but just generally. It made me think about how sometimes you have to take note of what everyone else is feeling and thinking, and put them first. It's not all about you, you need to think of others in order to be a good person. And it's not that I didn't already know that, it's just that this book really emphasised that for me, and I loved it for it, ya know? Sometimes we all just need a little reminder ;)

I really liked Lissa, though at times she got on my nerves. Her whole fascination with Cash was cute, but sometimes she jumped to conclusions, and assumed things that she shouldn't have done. In my opinion, she just needed to look at things rationally and view them for what they really were, and then she would have realised that Cash wasn't really using her, and was genuinely interested in her.

Overall though, I really really loved Shut Out. I'd recommend it for anyone who loved young adult contemporary fiction, or anyone who just wants a good, quick read that will make them think, but is not too deep. I'll definitely be reading The DUFF hopefully soon, as I can't wait to try reading anything else that Kody Keplinger has written, as this book really made an impact on me. I loved it.

My Rating:

I give it 5 Feet!

Challenges:
2011 100+ Reading Challenge #88