The Outsiders
Book Review By Aiden Moore
The Outsiders
Lead characters: Ponyboy, Darrel, Sodapop, Two-Bit, Steve Randle, Dallas, Johnny, and Cherry.
Plot: The Outsiders is about two teen gangs the greasers and socs in the mid 1960s. This story takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The greasers are so called poor white trash that drive old souped-up cars and like gang fights. Socs like to throw beer bashes and wreck houses. In the beginning of the novel the main character Ponyboy, who is a greaser introduces all six of his friends in his gang. The greasers and socs are always getting in fights between each other. One day they take it to far when they attempt to kill Ponyboy and his friend Johnny at a park. Johnny ends up saving Ponyboy's life by killing one of the socs. This leads to series of events ranging from saving kids from a burning down church to getting into a large gang fight with the socs. Johnny was killed soon after because he got injuries from saving the kids from the church. Because of this everything started to go down hill from there.
Did you like This novel and why? I liked The Outsiders because it was very interesting and I kept wanting to come back to read more of it. It had a very exciting story line that kept it moving and it never died out.
What was your favorite part? My favorite part of The Outsiders is when Ponyboy and Johnny go to the park very late at night because Johnny's parents are arguing and he doesn't want to go home. When they are at the park the socs arrive looking for trouble. They tried to jump Ponyboy and Johnny, the socs beat up Johnny and then started to drown Ponyboy. Johnny eventually got up and remembered he had a knife in his pocket. He walked over the the ones that were drowning Ponyboy and stabbed one of them death. The rest of them ran away and Ponyboy passed out as Johnny sat there. When Pony woke up they went to Dally for a plan on what to do next.
If you could change one thing why? I would change the end of the book because it is very sad. Although I really liked the ending and it got me thinking a lot about it I just wished it had a happy ending that made me feel good.
Did you like the characters? Yes, I like all of the from the outsiders. My favorite Character was Dallas because of how cool he is and the stuff he does. He is the toughest one out of there entire gang and likes to get in a lot of trouble. Another one of my favorite characters is Johnny because of how heroic he acts through out the story.
What is your recommendation? I would recommend this book to middle school to high school kids that like fiction books.
5 adjective to describe the text: The adjectives I would use to describe this text is Exciting, sentimental, dramatic, Heroic, and heartwarming
What type of language does the book use? The Outsiders uses everyday or American slang language. It uses colloquial language.
Find two examples of figurative language: "... Soda attracted girls like honey draws flies(9)." "They were all as tough as nails and looked like it (9)."
Does the level of language make it easy or difficult to follow? The language used in The Outsiders was easy to follow. It was clear and never caused me any trouble while reading.
Work Cited: Hinton, S.E. "The Outsiders." Smore. Aiden Moore, 08 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016. <https://www.smore.com/greyg-the-outsiders>.