review; shut out
Shut Out
by Kody Keplinger
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.
Review:
This was so adorable. Lissa is a protagonist much sweeter than Bianca and Whitley – she is a little naive, a little bit of a pushover when it comes to her relationship with Randy – but so strong in her own way. The battle of the sexes only serves to give her more confidence in herself. I love that she wavers, that she falters – makes mistakes and learns from them. It makes her more real.
All the women in the novel are strong individuals, and so different. One thing I absolutely love about Kody’s books so far is that she takes the way women are judged by the world and tears it apart as much as she can. Double standards exist, and she does not try to break down stereotypes or anything, but shows character growth in her women by having them learn not to tear each other down. And it is wonderful.
Cash is awesome. He is sweet, a bit of an idiot sometimes, but awesome in general. I assumed he had a crush on Lissa almost from the beginning, but it was so sweet that he kept waiting on her to know what she wanted. Randy, on the other hand, was an ass. A little emotionally manipulative too, and I loved that even his friends told him to back off Lissa by the end.
All in all, glad I downloaded this to read.
Ara
I’m Ara, a Southeast Asian writer who someday hopes to have published a novel, and who is currently losing herself in the worlds created by others. I love books and food and television and blogging and I get distracted and sidetracked easily.