I was in Junior High School when I first read S.E. Hinton's 1967 novel, "The Outsiders." The story remained with me through the preceding decades until I picked it up again this month.

14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis narrates a few weeks in his life in which everything changed. Pony lives with his older brothers, Darrel and Sodapop, after the death of their parents. The boys grew up in the poor eastside neighborhood of their Oklahoma town, where they identify as "Greasers" due to their long, slicked-back hair and unpolished mannerisms. Across town, the rich kids call themselves "Socs." The two groups hate and distrust one another. This hatred sometimes explodes into violence, which sometimes leaves kids dead.

The rivalry between the Socs and Greasers escalates into street violence and class warfare. It is a bleak story that (spoiler alert) results in the deaths of several teenagers.

Hinton gives us a rich set of characters:
Darrel: Barely an adult, but he gave up a college scholarship to serve as a father figure to his two younger brothers after their parents' death.
Sodapop: Handsome, Happy-go-lucky middle child, whose heart breaks over the girl who does not return his love.
Dallas: He rebels against everything and takes pride in his bad boy image. The only thing he ever loved was Johnny.
Johnny: The smallest and most vulnerable of the gang. The first to get hurt badly.

And, of course, Ponyboy. He is the youngest of the gang and, along with Johnny, the most sensitive. Much of the story focuses on the Curtis family, struggling to stay together despite the odds.

Hinton packs a great deal into the 180 pages of this novel. "The Outsiders" is a coming-of-age story about identity and belonging. It is about the pain of loss and the frustration of feeling powerless to improve one's life. It is at times bleak, and at other times hopeful. Ponyboy and his friends' lives spiral out of control, and he is powerless to stop it.

I remember the story; I knew the tragedy that was coming, but I could not look away. Hinton kept me engaged throughout. It is hard to believe this was her first novel, and that she wrote much of it while she was in high school in Tulsa, OK.

I enjoyed this book in my teen years and again in my sixties because the characters are real and I can relate to their problems