The Outsiders
1967
- juvenile works
- violence
- fiction classics
- fiction
- gangs
- family life
- family
- juvenile fiction
- brothers
- young adult fiction
The story
According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. ([source][1]) [1]: http://www.sehinton.com/books/
What it’s like
Lean, plain-spoken first-person prose with the restless energy of a teenager narrating his own life, short sentences and quick bursts of dialogue that move at a fast clip through Oklahoma streets. The sensory world is hot summer nights, sodium-lit lots, sunsets on wheat fields, the rumble of cars and the smell of cigarettes and grease, with long quiet passages under open sky where the narrator drifts and thinks. Its vibe is wistful and hard-edged, a rough-hewn coming-of-age story that suits a late-afternoon read, a long train ride, or a reread on a school-night evening. Violence is present and consequential: fistfights, a gang rumble, a stabbing, and a death, all rendered directly and without gore but with real weight. The emotional register is melancholy and tender, with a warm streak of loyalty between brothers and friends, and the arc follows a boy who has built his identity on being tough slowly discovering that suffering is shared across every social line. It suits readers who want a character-driven story about brotherhood, class divides, and grief, and it is not a gentle read.
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