The Outsiders

Summary

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma. It follows Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year-old boy living on the poor side of the city. His gang, the Greasers, has been at odds with the rich gang, the Socs (pronounced So-shiz), for years. When a Soc is killed by a Greaser, tension erupts between the Greasers and the Socs, forcing Ponyboy and Johnny to flee to the country. When a tragedy occurs and the rival gangs come to violence, Ponyboy must find out what it truly means to stay gold.

My Review

My rating: 5/5

My recommended age: 12+

Things To Be Aware Of

Violence: 3/5 (A young man is stabbed and dies from the wounds, but there are no graphic descriptions. There’s talk of gang violence and a gang fight, and a boy gets beaten up, although the story only describes him afterwards.)

Sexual Content: 1/5 (One of the young men flirts with a girl but there’s no specific inappropriate conversation.)

Language: 1/5 (There are a few uses of d**m and hell and a couple instances where it’s implied that they curse, but we never know what they actually said.)

Other Negative Content: 2/5 (Most of the characters smoke, and most of them are underage. It’s stated that a boy had his back broken when a falling beam hit him.)

My Take

The Outsiders is definitely one of my favorite books, and I was even more impressed when I learned the author was 16 when she wrote it. One of the things she did was capture human nature so well and create characters that feel completely real, not forced or awkward or stereotypical. You can’t help falling in love with Ponyboy, Johnny, Sodapop, even Dally, and the whole gang of Greasers. This book deals with some hard subjects, such as the murder of a young man and gang violence, but it deals with them wonderfully, keeping relatively clean. There is violence, all between boys who are mostly underage, but it’s not graphic and there are only a few scenes. I was pleasantly surprised at how there was practically no sexual content or swearing. For a book covering these topics, that was rare. S.E. Hinton’s writing and her characters are so good; I was definitely crying at some parts–both sad and happy tears. The book is gritty and intense, but ultimately hopeful and beautiful.

The topics brought up in The Outsiders are more intense, but they are handled so well in the book, dwelling more on the relationships between the boys more than anything else. It’s shown multiple times how strong the Greasers’ bonds are; they show their sacrificial love for each other more than once. They’re boys that live in a world where the odds are stacked against them, but they don’t stoop to the level of the Socs, taking their anger out on the world. They don’t seek fights, but they don’t shy away when its brought to them. Ponyboy and his brothers, Darry and Sodapop, aren’t a perfect family in any way, but they try. For boys who got the short straw in life, they act admirably in so many ways. Two of them risk their lives to save people they’ve never met. The Greaser boys are tightly knit together, going above and beyond to help each other, even while they punch each other on the shoulder and wrestle each other to the ground. And in the end, Ponyboy and Johnny and the Greaser gang show us what it’s like to stay gold.

So… stay gold!! 😀