Ponyboy Curtis is the baby of an Oklahoma greaser gang. Rough boys with rougher pasts, the greasers are the scourge of the city, at war with the richer Socs. Ponyboy quickly finds himself in over his head when his friend, Johnny, murders one of the Socs and the boys end up on the run, jeopardising not only their relationships and families, but maybe even their lives.
I got pretty swept up in this. S.E. Hinton has an excellent sense of compelling prose, especially given she was so young when she wrote this! The relationships are realistic and charming, and Ponyboy is a well drawn character who you empathise with almost from the get-go. He's a sweet, lost boy in a city full of them, and that comes across so beautifully in the tease out of this. That said, some of the plot points hit me out of left field and seemed, well, unrealistic, and I'm not sure yet if it's because I'm unfamiliar with the era or if they really did just come out of nowhere (burning down school, I'm looking at you).
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and it makes me really interested to read her later work to see how she progressed as an author.
3.5 out of 5 beat up copies of Gone with the Wind.
No comments:
Post a Comment