【Book Review】The Outsiders

The Outsiders

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

Characters: ★★★★★

Plot: ★★★★★

Writing：★★★★

        To be honest, this is more like a 4.5 stars rating. However, I thoroughly enjoy this book, and I just cannot believe the fact that I actually love it! The Outsiders tells a story about Ponyboy Curtis, who is part of the lower-class called Greasers in their region. The Greasers usually get into fights with another group of teenagers who are called Socs and they are people who come from the higher-class in the region. Their conflictions come to a breaking point when Ponyboy’s friend does something horrible, and their lives are turned upside down forever.

To be one hundred percent honest, I don’t expect myself liking this book. I picked it up on Amazon just for the purpose of completing my bargain price. When I was wondering which book to read, I decided to pick this book up, and it totally blew me away. The best part of this book is its plot and its characters. Though I still have some issues about the writing style, I think that is probably my problem since I generally don’t appreciate the way these characters speak just like those of the book Of Mice and Men.

-Spoiler Alert!-

    My favorite part of this book is its characters. I cannot express how deeply I love Ponyboy and Johnny, and how depressing I was when I read the death of Johnny. Ponyboy, being only fourteen years old, is the youngest of the greasers. While Ponyboy is mature and well-aware of the confliction between greasers and Socs, he sometimes still possesses the typical teenage features which can cause him great trouble in the book. To be fair, it is his behavior to run away from his house at night that somewhat leads to his encounters with other Socs, which causes Johnny to kill one of them. By the way, I seriously think that the introduction of this book on Goodreads and other websites shouldn’t include the fact that Johnny kills someone. That is supposed to be a spoiler. If previously the readers have no idea of this incident, they will definitely be in deep shock when they read this part. Giving the readers this piece of information is just like taking away or weakening the excitement of reading this book. Also, I really admire Johnny as a character. He is willing to sacrifice himself for the purpose of saving other kids in the fire, and he is willing to kill a person in order to save his friend Ponyboy. He is such a great character, and I am so sad that he is dead at the end.

    I think there are maybe other symbols or general ideas within this book, but the most apparent one is definitely the social conflict between the Greasers and the Socs. This rivalry relationship more or less reflects the distant gap between the rich and the poor or the gap between the high classes and low classes. Even the author portrays their relationship with such dreadfulness, it is very likely that she actually points out the fact that these two classes are not opposite completely. This opinion is shown in the part where Ponyboy, a greaser, discusses literature works and watches movies with Cherry, a member of the Socs. Their harmonious relationship is an evident indication that the relationships between people from different social status are not at all hateful, instead, there are still some bright spots that can be discovered.

    Overall, I really like this book, and I definitely recommend this book to everyone who is interested in books that deal with teenage problems and social conflicts. I have had a great experience reading this book. I should have read it earlier!