The Outsiders

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home...

Hmm, time to put away childish things. Though I did love the Outsiders and all the rest of SE Hinton's books about tough-but-sensitive manboys from the wrong side of the tracks. Pure teen fantasy - she swiftly despatches the boring grownups by making her heroes orphans, and cunningly writes from the boys' point of view to attract the boy readers whilst making them all cute to attract the girl readers. (Though she's pretty tough on her female characters, who are all faithless heartless femme fatales,there's more than a hint of homoeroticism in the whole setup. Mind you, teenage girls love a bit of homoeroticism - see also My Beautiful Laundrette, Interview with A Vampire, etc etc.)

It's easy to tease, but it's so well meant, and some of it still rings true.

I could see boys going down under street lights because they were mean and tough and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them there was still good in it, and they wouldn't believe you if you did. It was too vast a problem, to be just a personal thing. There should be some help, someone should tell them before it was too late. Someone should tell their side of the story...