The Outsiders

This is probably one of the best books I have ever read. At first I was skeptical about reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders (written in 1967). But when I saw Copolla's movie adaptation starring Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell etc. I was amazed at how good the movie was. It was so real because you were able to connect with the characters since they grew up in tough neighborhoods trying to fit in society. So I decided tot read the book in order to find out if the movie actually is worse than the book ( since sometimes watching the movie before the book gets hopes up for nothing). But in actuality, both the movie and book are equally great because not many directors are able to capture the depth of a novel and visually interpret it the exact way that the audience wanted their ideas to be visualized. It is like West Side Story with a twist [ and no secret love affair], the Greasers and The Socs [socials, pronounced Soash] and each of the characters in the greasers gang (Ponyboy, Sodapop and Darrel ‘Darry' Curtis, Dallas ‘Dally' Winston,Steve,Two-Bit and Johnny) each have personalities that make you sympathize with them and love them so much more than their society does (being poor, dirty JD's and hoodlums). All the actors did a great job portraying those characters and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read/ watch a great movie.