The Outsiders in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jan 17, 2022 Angie rated it liked it

I have to get this out in the open first - I'm 49 years old and had never read The Outsiders or even watched the movie. I know! How did a teenage girl in the 80's not watch a movie packed with the heartthrobs of the day? I dunno. But now that that's off my chest I can proceed.

I didn't really love this *shrug* I hate to admit that when I see that all my friends gave it 4 and 5 stars, and the literacy specialist at the school where I work raves about it as one of her favorite books, etc. But it d I have to get this out in the open first - I'm 49 years old and had never read The Outsiders or even watched the movie. I know! How did a teenage girl in the 80's not watch a movie packed with the heartthrobs of the day? I dunno. But now that that's off my chest I can proceed.

I didn't really love this *shrug* I hate to admit that when I see that all my friends gave it 4 and 5 stars, and the literacy specialist at the school where I work raves about it as one of her favorite books, etc. But it did very little for me. It took a long time to get into it, and then as an elementary librarian who found this book on our school shelves at the same time my 8th grade daughter was reading it for Language Arts, I was so distracted by all the smoking, drinking and fighting and not-elementary-level behaviors that I struggled to latch onto it.

I was impressed that it was written by a teenager. I didn't know that until I'd finished reading and wanted to learn a bit more about the book (specifically looking to see if this book is classified as YA or Middle Grade/juvenile fiction because it was on my elementary school shelves and I was completely boggled by that). I loved learning that! There were a lot of mature themes (class distinction, friends as family, death) that were written really solidly, which makes the fact that the author was a teenager herself all the more impressive. However (this is going to make me sound horrible and gender-stereotyping) I feel like maybe the author's perspective as a teenage girl writing about teenage boys was to blame for some of the things that felt the most off to me - some of the flowery language between boys talking about sunsets and stars, the teenage brothers cuddling in bed, the not insignificant amount of times the teenage boys cried, reading Gone With the Wind, etc. Maybe I'm just way off the mark and those were all legit behaviors of teenage boys in the 60s, and I'm not even saying that any of those things were bad, they just they didn't feel authentic to of group of self-proclaimed juvenile delinquent boys.

I totally get why this book is kind of hailed as the launch of YA literature. A book about teenagers dealing with real life things teenagers dealt with and written by a teenager? Absolutely great way to help usher in YA fiction. I still don't think it belongs on elementary school shelves like where I found it though, but that's a whole other discussion! ...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Chris Friend rated it it was amazing

[This review intended for my 8th-grade Language Arts class:]

It's a very easy read, with a casual writing style and action that is engaging through and through. The most amazing thing to me was how well (and how thoroughly) the author created very believeable, very real, and very distinct characters. They are emotionally involved and easy to care about. For being such a short book, it packs quite an emotional punch. It's a story about kids in two opposing social groups (I don't want to call them ...more

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