Shut Out...Into The Light

Published: September 5th, 2011
Shut Out
By: Kody Keplinger
Poppy
ISBN-13: 9780316175562


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

Then 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. But what Lissa never sees coming is her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling...

Review

   Lissa always thought that the rivalry between the boy's football and soccer teams at her high school was out of control.  At first she was just fed up because of the juvenility of it: mostly the egging of car windows while making out with her boyfriend Randy.  But then a soccer player tore his ACL and Randy got messed up in a fight.  That's when Lissa decides to do something about it once and for all.  She initiates a sex/hook-up strike, including player's girlfriends from both of the teams.  Lissa figures that if they withhold something the boys can't go without, they'll cave in and end the rivalry.  At first it seems like a really great idea and it definitely brings all of the girls closer together.  But then things start to get ugly after Randy stages a publicly humiliating breakup with Lissa at the dance, while cheating on her.  This is devastating, but in the wings waiting for a chance is Cash Sterling, a soccer player Lissa got with when her and Randy broke up before.  She doesn't think he's serious about her, so when Cash puts himself in charge of the boys when they fight back the tension reaches a breaking point.  Will Lissa end up losing Cash to win the war?  Or will she realize she might have already won and just not realized it?  I enjoyed this book a lot.  It doesn't downplay the serious decisions and consequences that come alongside having sex.  Lissa and the girls have some really great conversations about it, especially her friend Chloe who all the other girls view as a slut, just because she likes sex.  The way that Lissa and Cash circle around one another is believable and he has a reputation for not dating anyone EVER.  This makes it understandable that Lissa thought he was playing with her.  In the ways that Catching Jordan went sour for me, this book went right.  I have not read Kody's other novel because I just wasn't able to get into it.  This one was a book I couldn't put down.  I really disliked the last ditch effort of Lissa to 'win' the war and that's why this book doesn't get a perfect rating.  But it is highly recommended and the ending was great.

VERDICT:  4/5  Stars

Book # 4 of Challenge COMPLETE

*This ARC was provided for an honest review from the publisher (I got it from a Librarian friend) and no money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores and online.*