The Tortoise and the Hare Entry No. 12

The Outsiders
By S.E. Hinton

For the first time, I didn’t rush through writing a review for this book. I knew my feelings for it were not fleeting. I could reread it 15 years hence.

The book interested me when it was listed as one of the books you should reread in your lifetime. I hadn’t read The Outsiders, and incidentally, I had the book in the latest #ShopOurShelf, so I picked it up in the most casual way.

The story is about the rivalry between the Socs (socials) and the Greasers. A rivalry that highlighted the social divide of teens at that time and which seemed to subsume and simplify their universe until an event happened that blurred all rules of play.

I wouldn’t call the book a young adult novel but a coming-of-age story as coming of age as can only be written by a 16-year-old. There’s not a talking down, a simplification as is common in many young adult novels. The author just writes as the world needs her. What would it have meant to me at 16?

I couldn’t help feel so removed from the book cover. I know it is meant to portray a Greaser, but it is difficult to reconcile it with the tenderest book I’ve probably read. Violence can be unfeeling like clothing that we wear on our backs as if almost a necessity. But who are we shorn of it? Are we not outsiders no matter which side of the fence we find ourselves in that the divide is more mythical than we think?

This is a five-star read at least for me. I’d tag this as a tortoise read. Somehow it’s not one you need to speed through. You just enjoy every reading stint.