Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. It had its place on my bookshelf as well as on anybody's, to say the truth.The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S.E. But I tried and THE OUTSIDERS sure was worth the effort. I didn't finish it, because she spoils the complete novel in the very foreword. The very phrase 'foreword by Jodi Picoult' normally keeps me off a book better than a hundred thousand volts electric fence, but it was intriguing here.

I even read the foreword by Jodi Picoult, or almost. How things were filtered into being what they are now. In fact, after I finished the book, I felt like I had just found a missing link in modern literature, that ties the 20th century classics era (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Camus, etc.) with the state of publishing and literature today. It's hard to find reasons not to read THE OUTSIDERS. YA Literature, writing teenagehood, the coming-of-age aesthetic,the power of archetype tales, etc.

I enjoyed Patient Zero and gained a better understanding of many issues reading it. THE OUTSIDERS was before its time and bound to such a monster success. Plus, it was published in a time where rules of society were changing and kids were left with a LOT of figuring out to do. The see-through innocence and the sense of emergency is was written with is really second to none and the fact it was a teenager story, written by one and geared toward this audience predestined it to be a classic. If you pay attention, you will see the blue print of S.E Hinton's book in many novels and movies. Two gangs, one rich and one poor, fighting all the time ***, a double-crossing girl, all the variables are there. I remember the appalling dance flick STEP UP 3D I had to watch in a social situation, who was just THE OUTSIDERS with dancing.and without any endearing characters. Its structure has been and is still being used to articulate other stories as of today. I loved that S.E Hinton relied on the reader's instinct to draw this conclusion and didn't held my hand to the conclusion she wanted me to have.Īnother interesting aspect of THE OUTSIDERS is the imprint it left. Ponyboy's biggest issue is that he's an intellectual, an artist in a world that doesn't have a place for him and he doesn't quite grasp that. He lives in a violent place, but he literally has a gang sticking up for him. That helplessness, that impossibility to identify his ill is what makes Ponyboy so real and believable. You are basically a child with a deformed body, shuffling and struggling to adapt to an ever-changing reality and you don't know who you are anymore, there's a great deal of baggage you don't have to help you understand things. At Ponyboy's age (fourteen), you don't think like an adult yet.

It doesn't address 'teenagehood issues' per se, but rather treats teenagerhood AS an issue itself. What separates THE OUTSIDERS from its generation of wannabee followups is a subtle but very important distinction.

Susan eloise hinton the outsiders