Shut Out (Hamilton High)

by Kody Keplinger

The girls of Hamilton High are going on strike. Sick of the rivalry between their boyfriends' American football and soccer teams, Lissa and her friends are determined that the boys won't see any action from them until they put an end to their immature pranks. But Lissa hasn't counted on a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to first. And Lissa finds that it's much harder than she ever thought it would be.

From the author of The Duff - now a major film starring Bella Thorne, Mae Whitman and Alison Janney, out in DVD in Summer 2015.

• ISBN10: 1444909932
• ISBN13: 9781444909937
• Publish Date: 5 June 2014 (first published 1 January 1960)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hachette Children's Group
• Imprint: Hodder Children's Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Loved the Lysistrata inspiration in this one. [Fact: I saw my sister perform this play when we were undergrads.] It was cute and fun and had some good drama, but most importantly, the story was very sex positive. I think a lot of readers will appreciate how openly Keplinger takes on sex and intimacy.

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[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

When asking for recommendations to read for Sex in Teen Lit Month II, Shut Out by Kody Keplinger was one of the suggestions that I was told would be perfect for the month. Not only is this true, but it does great things for girls and sexuality.

Lissa is sick of the rivalry between the American football and soccer teams at her school, and how it takes her boyfriend's attention away from her. Not only that, but the pranks are getting violent and people ar egetting hurt. She has decided it must end. With the other girlfriends of the football and soccer players, they go on strike, refusing to have sex or perform any sexual acts with their boyfriends until the rivalry is over. What Lissa didn't expect is or the guys to come up with ideas together about how to seduce them and break the strike before the rivalry ends. It's a battle of the sexes, and it's 50/50 on who will give in first...

Despite the rivalry/strike plot, this book is about so much more than a battle of the sexes. This book is brilliant for one very specific reason: it encourages it's readers to have positive and healthy attitudes towards sex. How? Through the varying experiences of the girls on strike. Shut out touches on a lot of questions that go through teenage girls' minds about sex. I remember when I was a teen and the confusion there was. My friends and I would talk about sex, but we wouldn't talk about it. With peer pressure, there came rules. Certain things are acceptable, and other things are not. But what if your feelings on sex were the other way round? There's also an inequality of attitudes towards girls and sex, and boys and sex. How what's ok for boys isn't for girls. Girls can't be promiscuous where boys can. Yet girls shouldn't be virgins either, because what boy will be interested in a girl who doesn't have sex? This is exactly what Shut Out talks about. How every person is different, and there is no right or wrong when it comes to sex. And it's just fantastic!

'There were a lot of things I wasn't getting lately. Like it wasn't OK to like sex too much because then you were a slut, but not having it made a girl weird. Or how boys like Cash could get away with flirting too much but a girl would get trash-talked for doing the same thing.' (p139) 

'"...I want to know what's normal." She hesitated and then looked down at her bare feet on the tiles. "I want to be normal, but no one talks about sex, so how should I know what normal is?"
I considered this for a second. She was asking the same questions that had been running through my head for weeks: What's normal? What is expected of us?
"You know," I said quietly, "I don't think normal exists."' (p185)

As I was reading, I felt there was a similarity between Shut Out and Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky. Where Anatomy of a Single Girl has it's main character exploring her sexuality in a very positive way, it doesn't cover the negative attitudes generally felt towards girls who enjoy their sexual freedom. With Shut Out, those attitudes are there in full force, but are also turned on their head. Lissa's best friend Chloe enjoys having sex. She's had a lot of casual sex with many different boys, and has a reputation because of it. Some of the girlfriends in on the strike have really awful opinions of her at first because of it. But Chloe doesn't care, and is quite comfortable with her sexuality.

'"Look. This is stupid," she said. "We live in a supposedly equal society, so what's the big deal? I'm not ashamed to think about sex. Or talk about it. Or have it."' (p230)

There is another character, Mary, who admits, reluctantly, that perhaps the strike won't work for her and her boyfriend, because they've yet to have sex; she's a virgin. She expects judgement, hence her reluctance, and that's also what she gets - even from Chloe. The judgement isn't in the sense that they think she's a bad person like the others think of Chloe, but more of increduality. Why hasn't she had sex yet? What is she waiting for? They can't really get it round their heads. Yet it turns out that not everyone is quite as honest at first about their own level of experience.

'"You're not weird, or a prude, or a tease, or any of that," I assured her. "Actually, I think it's great that you're waiting. It's sort of refreshing. And sex is a big deal, so you shouldn't rush it just because everyone else is doing it. I think it's a major decision."' (p113)

But as the story progresses and the girls get to know each other, Keplinger shows that things aren't so black and white. And as time goes on, Shut Out shows those same girls not just being accepting of where other people are in their sex lives, but being supportive of each other's choices. When these girls open up and talk about things, they take away the stigma and turn stereotypes on their heads at the same time. Judgement becomes understanding becomes acceptance and support.

'As the room erupted into chatter again, I realized just how happy I was that I'd started the strike. Sure, it had started because of the sports feud, but now it was about so much more. It was about independance and confidence and breaking free of stereotypes and labels. Now, win or lose, I had these girls - these friends -who'd proven to me that there was no such thing as normal, and that I had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if the boys won, I'd got something out of this strike. Something important.' (p235)

'Chloe didn't have all the answers, either. I knew that now. But she had known something all along that I hadn't: that being ashamed of what you want or how you feel is pointless, and letting anyone else make you feel that way is a waste. We all wanted different things, and that was OK. Chloe wanted sex without commitment. Mary wanted to wait until she was ready. And I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I didn't want to make any decisions until I knew. And I was proud of that.' (p321 - Emphasis my own.)

I did have one issue with Shut Out though. It feels very young. The characters are supposed to be 18, but they feel more like they're 14. On the one hand, with what it teaches, this is pretty good for the teenagers I feel should be reading this book, those in their mid-teens, but my personal taste is to have the characters act more like their age. There is a romance in Shut Out, and it's very sweet, but again because of the how young the characters acted, I got frustrated with them and rolled my eyes a few times.

Saying that, for all the good it does, this book is great! And the plot of the rivalry and the strike is just perfect as it gets those girls together to have those very important conversations. Not my favourite book, but one I would highly recommend.

Thank you to Hodder Children's Books for the review copy.

[Angie]

Sex. This book is about sex. Specifically, teenage sex. Be warned. Now that that's out of the way, I absolutely loved The DUFF, so I did have high expectations for Shut Out. While I enjoyed it, it felt too "after school special" to me at times. At least if after school specials were about girls embracing and taking control of their sexuality. Lissa is sick of her boyfriend ditching her for the stupid rivalry between their schools' football and soccer teams. She calls a meeting with other girlfriends of guys on the teams and find out that they're sick of it, too. So she comes up with an idea to end the rivalry and get their relationships back: a sex strike. She believes that if the girls all withhold sex and sexual favors, their guys will become putty in their hands and put all of the hazing and pranks behind them. What starts as a simple strike turns into a full on war between guys and girls.

My first impression of Shut Out was a bad one. I could not stand Lissa from the very first chapter. She is beyond uptight and is the definition of a control freak. There is an explanation for her over-the-top behavior, but I still found her incredibly annoying. I mean, this girl yells at her brother who is almost 30 because he's maybe 5 minutes late coming home and didn't call. What?! In fact, she freaks out any time anyone is even a second late to anything! Everyone must follow her schedule or all hell breaks loose. I understand that she's the woman of the house and feels the need to take care of her father and brother, but she takes it way too far. I also didn't like how almost everything that came out of her mouth felt like the script from that after school special I already mentioned. Lissa drove me completely bonkers!

There is a not-so subtle message about sex in Shut Out, which I do agree with, but at the same time I felt like I was being beaten over the head with it. I definitely appreciate and applaud the author for talking about teen sex in a realistic and open manner, but this book took things a bit too far. I did love the scenes of all of the jock girlfriends talking about their feelings and experiences (or lack thereof) with sex. Many different opinions are included, and it was made clear that none of them are more right or normal than the others. It's a great message, but it was always in the forefront and overshadowed the rest of the story. My favorite character, Chloe, was deemed the school slut for liking sex and sleeping with many guys. She didn't let this faze her, which I loved, but every time she opened her mouth it was to preach about how girls don't need to be ashamed of their sexuality and all that. At times it seemed that was all her character was used for.

This review is coming out more negative than I intended. I did enjoy Shut Out. It was a fun, boys versus girls rivalry, but all of the stuff that bothered me stands out more than what I did like. It's a fairly simple and predictable story about a complicated issue, but I think that works for the most part. I just wish that the book's message wasn't so in-your-face all of the time and that the characters were less caricatures and more multidimensional. I definitely think more books like this need to exist though, since pro-sex messages for girls are important.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[ellieroth]

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