Brody Nichols

The Outsiders

Author:S.E. Hinton

The book I finished was the Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, a teen author from the 60’s. She was just 17 years old when she wrote the Outsiders. The outsiders has 192 pages, and it was published on April 24 ,1967. I picked this book to read because it’s one of my favorite books and i wanted to read it again.

This book is about two sides of town, the Greasers and the Socs. The two gangs are always fighting with each other and having rumbles. Ponyboy, the main character, just wants peace between the gangs because he thinks both gangs have problems and they are making it worse. When ponyboy and his best friend johnny get jumped and they end up doing something that changes their lives. Johnny gets charged with manslaughter but Pony and Johnny run away before he gets charged. Dally tells them to hide in a church. The church ends up burning down and they go back home.

If I was the author I would have the two gangs make up at the end. The way the book ended was decent but the gangs should have ended up getting along. I did not agree with Johnny’s death because it caused Dally’s death and then Ponyboy was sad because he lost all his friends in less than a day. I understood why the two gangs were fighting because they had history with each other and they couldn’t let it go.

The narrator of this book is Ponyboy. Ponyboy changed from the beginning of the book to the end because Ponyboy was a straight A student. He was staying out of trouble. By the end of the book he was failing and he kept getting into trouble. Ponyboy’s story changed his life. He lost two friends, he almost died twice, and he was a hero, but  Ponyboy wasn’t a hero, he got his friend killed. He died because Ponyboy couldn’t stay away from the Socs and the fire.

One quote that stood out to me was when the boys were going to the rumble and Dally says, “Let’s do it for Johnny”. It is short but clear and strong. It shows that all the friends really cared about Johnny and would fight for him. It is really true to what Dally would say. That was the first time the reader realized how much Dally cared about Johnny. The second time we realized that he cared was after Johnny died, Dally robbed a store and got himself killed. A quote in that part of the story that i remember was when Pony said “He’s just a kid” right when Dally got shot.

Sincerely,

Brody Nichols