A review by samantha_89
Shut Out by Kody Keplinger
4.0
I really, really wished I hadn't gone in to this novel knowing that Kody Keplinger was around my age. I wished I could have made the assumption that she was in her thirties or whatever. Unfortuantely, I couldn't and because of that I looked really closely at how it was written. There aren't too many young authors out there so how did she measure up to other authors?
Fortunately and unfortunately, I found that her age showed through out the book. There's an upside and a downside. The upside (and what kept this book at four stars for me) was that the dialogue between the teens was, 99% of the time, very spot on. There was cussing, and lots of it. They were crude sometimes, but at the same time they could wax poetic. Keplinger's teen years aren't too far behind her and that served her very well in this novel. The downside of her age is that she just hasn't had enough time to perfect her craft. The storytelling sometimes felt like it needed a bit of grease. The narrative and dialogue would sometimes be awkward and unnatural just to serve the purpose of dropping information. Keplinger is extremely talented, and the book as a whole is absolutely amazing. The storytelling sometimes took me out of it though and that's never good.
Shut Out is a very courageous story. Sex is not something that's talked about a lot in YA and when it is it's very simple and definitely not the entire plot of the novel. I hope that Shut Out takes off because it brings up excellent points of how us girls are treated unfairly when it comes to sex. I think this book could bring up excellent discussions in schools and really bring to light some of the inequalities between guys and girls. For those of you who wonder, despite the book being about sex there really isn't anything terribly graphic in it.
I enjoyed the fact that Lissa starts out with a boyfriend as you really don't see that all too much in books. I loved Cash's character, absolutely dreamy and easy to fall in love with. The introduction of his character was awkward and definitely is a huge point in how I was saying Keplinger's writing just isn't quite *there* yet.
So, writing aside I think this is a really important book. I would love to see more honesty like this in the YA section. I think I could even put up with clunky writing if I got more honestly.
Fortunately and unfortunately, I found that her age showed through out the book. There's an upside and a downside. The upside (and what kept this book at four stars for me) was that the dialogue between the teens was, 99% of the time, very spot on. There was cussing, and lots of it. They were crude sometimes, but at the same time they could wax poetic. Keplinger's teen years aren't too far behind her and that served her very well in this novel. The downside of her age is that she just hasn't had enough time to perfect her craft. The storytelling sometimes felt like it needed a bit of grease. The narrative and dialogue would sometimes be awkward and unnatural just to serve the purpose of dropping information. Keplinger is extremely talented, and the book as a whole is absolutely amazing. The storytelling sometimes took me out of it though and that's never good.
Shut Out is a very courageous story. Sex is not something that's talked about a lot in YA and when it is it's very simple and definitely not the entire plot of the novel. I hope that Shut Out takes off because it brings up excellent points of how us girls are treated unfairly when it comes to sex. I think this book could bring up excellent discussions in schools and really bring to light some of the inequalities between guys and girls. For those of you who wonder, despite the book being about sex there really isn't anything terribly graphic in it.
I enjoyed the fact that Lissa starts out with a boyfriend as you really don't see that all too much in books. I loved Cash's character, absolutely dreamy and easy to fall in love with. The introduction of his character was awkward and definitely is a huge point in how I was saying Keplinger's writing just isn't quite *there* yet.
So, writing aside I think this is a really important book. I would love to see more honesty like this in the YA section. I think I could even put up with clunky writing if I got more honestly.