Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Title: Shut Out

Author: Kody Keplinger

Publisher: Poppy

Release Date: September 5, 2011

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

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 or haze a freshman. 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. In this hilarious and romantic reimagining of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the battle of boys against girls is on.

Over the last year Kody Keplinger has definitely become one of my favorite contemporary author and Shut Out has solidified that position. It was a story I enjoyed from start to finish and Kody Keplinger definitely knows how to write a good contemporary story.

Lissa is sick and tired of coming second to the feud between her school's football and soccer teams. And what girl wouldn't get annoyed when her boyfriend runs out on their make out session because the soccer team just pulled a prank. But she doesn't think the feud will ever end seeing as it's been going on for ten years already. So instead Lissa decides to give the boys incentive to stop fighting. She and the other girlfriends of the football and soccer players pledge to go on a sex strike until the two teams end their ridiculous feud. But what Lissa doesn't anticipate is the boys retaliating, attempting to seduce the girls to get them to go against their pledge. But what Lissa really doesn't see coming is Cash Sterling, the one boy who might just be able to break Lissa's resolve. It will all come down to who will be able to resist the call of their libido the longest...or so Lissa thought at first.

Until I heard about Shut Out I had never heard about Aristophanes' Lysistrata. When I found out more about both the book and the play I knew this had the potential to be a fantastic story. And Kody Keplinger definitely proved that. The story was incredible and I was drawn in right from page one. The way she retold Aristophanes' play was done in a creative way. I especially liked how she made the rivalry be between two teams at the same school which isn't something you see that often. It was definitely a story I enjoyed and I felt completely drawn in, to the point that it sometimes felt like I was a part of the story. I don't read that much contemporary books, and Kody Keplinger is an author that definitely makes them worth it. 

I love Lissa. She was definitely a great character and I felt like I could really relate to her. I've never been in the same situation but if I ever was, odds are I would react in the same way. And I mean what self-respecting girl wouldn't? My only problem with her was that it took her a while to figure out that Randy was a complete jerk. Which leads me to Randy and what a first class jerk he was. I don't want to say too much but basically he was not a very nice person, and that's putting it nicely. And that leaves Cash Sterling. At first, I didn't really think about him too much but then he began being more present in the story. At which point I figured out that he was a super sweet person and the polar opposite of Randy. Plus it sounded like he was rather easy on the eyes.

Shut Out was an absolutely fantastic read and I loved every page of it. Kody Keplinger once again proved how great a writer she is and I can't wait to read more of her future books.