KidLit Forum

After reading the book quite carefully I found out a couple of things like:
- at the beginning of the book Ponyboy keeps on thinking that the Soccs are luckier than the Greasers and that the firsts have better lives than the latters. But towards the end of the book it is quite clear that the boys from both groups are more similar than they would ever imagine. I think that this is very obvious in the fact that Johnny’s story is quite similar to the one of Bob’s, the boy who Johnny kills, in the fact that all they want is being noticed by their families. We find out from Randy that Bob wanted to make himself noticeable by getting really drunk, and from the plot that Johnny craves for his family’s attention. However both of their families think only about themselves and not about the kids also.
- Ponyboy only realizes how much he cares about his eldest brother Darry, when he is away from home and on the run. When face to face to Darry , he seems mean and uncaring, but from the distance their memories together are very nice and full of emotions.
- I was curious why, if Johnny had killed Bob, Ponyboy had to do the most changes in his looks,both cutting his hair and dying it , thus affecting what he really cherishes, his looks
- Although Johnny is not a talkative person, nor does he have good grades in school, he is portrayed by Pony as a very smart kid, but not understood by teachers who needed to keep a slower pace in order for Johnny to succeed in school. Adults are blamed again for the situation in which the kids got themselves into as they sold alcohol to minors “Why do people sell liquor to boys?” says Cherrie
- And the last but not the least is the one in which Pony realises that it does not matter the side of the town one comes from they are all human beings with feelings and that class conflict is pointless, just like in the excerpt in which Darry starts fighting his former buddy Paul „That’s stupid, I thought swiftly, they’ve both come here to fight and they’re both supposed to be smarter than that. What difference does the side make?”

On the whole, for me this was an interesting reading, quite unusual taking into consideration the fact that is was written by a 15 year old girl from whom one would not expect violence and the understanding of the minds from boy gangs. (hopefully I do not make a gender discrimination by saying this )

She does display a strong sense of reality and young age struggle of that time. And she also grasps a boyish way of things, like Ioana previously wrote. The issues described aren't overthought, like a girl would - the manner of writing doesn't betray a teen-age female writer.