PUT OUT OR SHUT OUT?

Shut Out
Kody Keplinger
Released Sept 5th, 2011
273 Pages
Poppy

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.

I hate, hate, hate to say that I just didn't LOVE IT!!  I really wanted to feel the same way about Lissa/Randy/Cash that I did about Bianca/Wesley, but I didn't.  Don't get me wrong, the writing was good and Kody writes a great story, but I felt the characters fell a little flat.  I didn't feel any connection to Lissa who was all over the place, but I did really like her friend Chloe, she was spunky and fun. 

For me some parts of the book just felt off, or they could have been cut out of the story and it wouldn't have mattered.  The story is great for girls who are just exploring their sexuality and it does have some helpful advice from the 'slumber parties' about things that might be concerning them in their own lives. 

The highlight of Shut Out was Cash Sterling...I have made some space in my heart for him, right next to Wesley.  He was handsome, sweet and just the kind of guy that we all should have dated in High School.
 
I guess because I am a huge fan of The Duff, I was expecting a connection with Lissa that just wasn't there.  But I am a huge fan of Kody and will continue to read everything she writes!