Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Bartek Gosowski

Once in a while there just is a book that understands you, a book that you can connect to, something that is going to live forever, similarly this book is that type of a book. S.E Hinton did an amazing job writing The Outsiders. When I first started reading this book I felt that I will not be able to connect because have your parents and you are not a Greaser or Soc but then when you think about this book deeper you will see that you can connect because you feel like an outsider occasionally. For example when a person goes to a birthday party and he feels like he would not be missed and the boy got invited to the party just because the boys mom that invited him made him or you are new at a school.
It is a realistic fiction book because the things could of happened but really did not. This book takes place in the 1950's which was present time for S.E. Hinton when she wrote the book at the age of only seventeen. It happens in a city on the Eastern coast of the U.S.A and has some really interesting characters. The first character and the narrator of the book is named Ponyboy. He is a small 14 year old that loved his parents and had a good live until they died. Now his two brothers a sixteen going on seventeen year old Soda and the big and stocky build 21 year old Darry.
Darry is the more responsible brother of the two and probably because he is oldest but because of that he yells at Ponyboy a lot. For example he tells him to use his brains because he knows that Ponyboy is smart enough to get out of this place and of being a greaser. Darry tries to get Ponyboy to try because he had lost his chance of getting out because he could of had a football scholarship and finish collage but he chose not to because he was really lazy. Soda is the opposite of Darry even thought they are best friends and brothers. Soda always has a smile on his face and is almost always happy. Soda also is the opposite of Darry because Soda is a total dropout and it seemed formidable to finish school. Those three brothers have a lot of friends like Two-bit as they call him because he always adds his two bits to sentences. He is also kind of stocky and always brings his switch blade every where he goes. Another friend of there is Johnny who is a very quiet guy who is really helpful in everything. He is really quiet because he got really badly beat up by the Soc's ones. The best friend of Johnny is Dallas who helps who helps Johnny and Ponyboy a lot during the way and he is big and fits the stereotypes of a Greaser.
The first important thing that happened in the outsiders was when Ponyboy got jumped by the Soc's and would of gotten beat up pretty badly if Soda and Darry would of had came in and stopped them. The next really important thing that happened in the story was that when Bob a and his gang of Soc's attacked Johnny and Ponyboy and they nearly drowned Ponyboy so Johnny took out his switchblade that he was carrying with him every time since he got jumped really badly and nearly killed and stabbed Bob with great anger. He had killed Bob so now they had to hide. So they went to Dally and he game them money and other valuables and told them a good place to hide. Later when they stayed there for some days Dally came to tell them that it is safe for them to go back but they see a church on fire with kids in them and they try to safe and read on the rest for yourself.
Therefore I loved this book and and who knows it may of have been the best book I ever read, I will advocate this book to every person or kid above the age of 10. The perfect age for reading this book is about the age that we read it in our class because that is the age at which kids can understand this book really well and at the same time learn some life lessons like for instance that you should always have somebody you should trust. Also this book just flows when you read it and that is probably because I was so interested in what is going to happen next and also because it is written in such a way that it sounds like your friend wrote it. This is an astounding book and I can say nothing bad about it, especially when you think that it was written by a 17 year old in the 50's.