The Outsiders 40th Anniversary edition

by S. E. Hinton

Hardcover, 192 pages

English language

Published Sept. 6, 2007 by Viking Juvenile.

ISBN:: 978-0-670-06251-5
OCLC Number:: 37651024

(68 reviews)

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. ([source][1])

[1]: www.sehinton.com/books/

65 editions

Jim Brown reviewed The Outsiders 40th Anniversary edition by S. E. Hinton

Stay goild, Ponyboy

No rating

I feel like I read this book in junior high or high school, but I'm not sure. This time around, I read it because I'm going to see the Broadway Musical version soon, and I was struck by the representation's of friendship and intimacy in this book. The boys are affectionate and care for one another (and then they head out for a violent brawl with the Socs). It was also interesting to see how bad language or any references to sex are gestured toward but never actually directly represented/talked about.

Before this reading, didn't realize that Hinton was 16 when she wrote it, which is pretty impressive (and also maybe explains whey the book deals with "vulgar" material the way that it does).

Amber Herbert reviewed The Outsiders 40th Anniversary edition by S. E. Hinton

Review of 'The Outsiders 40th Anniversary edition' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I expected more from this modern classic. Even if Hinton wrote it when she was sixteen, that doesn’t discount the issues pertaining to pacing and exposition and the paper-thin characters. It read like a rough draft of a manuscript rather than a complete work. Where I was meant to feel sad or annoyed, I felt nothing. I also couldn’t relate to the greasers. Was I truly supposed to sympathize with them or rationalize their various “rumbles”? Every scene was missing the descriptions and requisite tension, making it read like a screenplay rather than a novel.