Stay gold Ponyboy, stay gold…I was about ten years old the first time I read The Outsiders, and I have read it least once a year, every year since then. Based around 14 year old Ponyboy Curtis, it deals with his difficult family life, living with his brothers eight months after his parents die in a car crash. It also focuses on the never ending rivalry between his fellow Greasers (seen as hoods or delinquents), and the Soc crowd, (the rich young people who beat up Greasers for sport).
I always found it amazing that author S.E. Hinton started writing this at only 17 years of age. It really reinforced that a book can be written so much easier if you really have something to say, rather than just because you are a natural writer. The Outsiders is probably a big reason for my ambition of being an author, but when I do eventually write my first book, it won’t just be for the sake of it, it will be because I actually have a story to tell.
It really says something about the impression The Outsiders made on me that I recently had to buy a new copy because my old one fell apart from being read so many times. It seems like every time I read The Outsiders I got something new out of it, and having read it again recently I can say that nothing has changed. This book just gets me, and no matter how old I get it will always be the book that most influenced me growing up.
Read this book.
