I picked up SHUT OUT at random, not realizing it was by the same author who wrote THE DUFF, a book I haven't yet read but one for which I've seen multiple positive reviews on YouTube. Yes, I'm such the book junkie that I can't get enough of READING books and review -- I have to watch them too. But, I digress... 
 Jumping right into the plot, as always. Lissa, a high school student with a control-freak side to her personality, is dating Randy, the quarterback AND hottest guy in high school (of course). The relationship is going pretty well, despite the fact that Randy seems positively sex-crazed (as do most teenage boys, no?) and, oh yeah, the fact that Randy is far more obsessed with the school's ongoing rivalry between the football players and the soccer team. So while Lissa has romance on the mind, Randy is pretty much looking for a quickie before running out the door to egg some soccer boy's car -- and frankly, Lissa has had enough. 
 Gathering together a few of her fellow classmates, all of whom are either dating or otherwise screwing members of either the football or soccer team, Lissa proposes a sure-fire way to finally end the rivalry for once and for all. None of the girls will have sex with any of the team until they bury the hatchet and pay more attention to their girlfriends than to petty teenage pranks. 
 Of course, things get messy, as football players start cheating, girlfriends start taunting, sexual secrets come out in the open, and Lissa finds herself falling for the ring-leader of the boy's team, otherwise known as the high school tease. Soon, Lissa becomes so entangled in planning the next move in her all-out sexual strike, that she starts to lose track of the motives that got her started in the first place. 
 Now, as a 20-something who reviews YA books, I admit that it sometimes gets difficult to be objective. There are definitely those categories of young-adult reads that I find myself thoroughly enjoying, even in my "old age," but then there are also titles that I find to just feel too young or too far out of my reach -- despite the fact that I could likely appreciate them had I been in the targeted age range. SHUT OUT, though, is an odd duckling in that it deals with more adult topics (like sex) but that it actually FEELS very young in its writing style and plot progression. I'm not entirely sure where I'd place this title, honestly, because the language and subject matter are too much for the early teens, but the story devices themselves may not keep the attention of those in their late teens. 
 But, then again, it's been a while since I was 17, so this one may be entirely relateable to that audience! What do I know?! 
 I think there were definitely positive points to this story, such as the discussions between the girls on gender equality and on the individualization of the sexual experience. For example, one girl is embarrassed because she is a virgin, and she feels left out of the high school loops, while another girl admits she actually doesn't enjoy sex and is worried that she will be ostracized for her admission. However, the girls decide that no one, be it high school boys or other females themselves, should make any of them feel inferior or strange for their personal choices -- even if those choices are different from the norm. 
 So many YA novels fall into the familiar love triangle, and SHUT OUT is really no exception. In the center we have Lissa, the semi-obsessive-compulsive heroine who likes to take charge and maintain control to the very end. Then on the one side we have Randy, her high school boyfriend (who is always the quarterback of the football team, right?), and on the other the loner high school team (who, of course, is always gorgeous. I don't know about you, but that wasn't ever really the case in my high school, and I can't for the life of me even remember who our quarterback was, now that I think about it...) Lissa feels committed to Randy and appalled by Cash, which of course means she'll be in the position to choose between the two and of course she will ultimately make the right decision. Always. 
 While the idea of a sex-strike is definitely something fresh and different, it really is the only thing unique about SHUT OUT. Even the imperfect boys are decidedly too perfect, and everything works out perfectly in the end, despite the hardship thrown at the main character in order to make the story more interesting. This is not to say, though, that the familiar is not entertaining. There's a reason that realistic fictions tend to follow one pattern and paranormals follow another -- because people read it, buy it, and enjoy it. Now, as someone in my late 20's, I probably wouldn't recommend this book to my own peers -- but, for the mature high school girl in her last few years before graduation? She might have an entirely different view all together.