The Outsiders

I feel like I read this book in junior high or high school, but I'm not sure. This time around, I read it because I'm going to see the Broadway Musical version soon, and I was struck by the representation's of friendship and intimacy in this book. The boys are affectionate and care for one another (and then they head out for a violent brawl with the Socs). It was also interesting to see how bad language or any references to sex are gestured toward but never actually directly represented/talked about.

Before this reading, didn't realize that Hinton was 16 when she wrote it, which is pretty impressive (and also maybe explains whey the book deals with "vulgar" material the way that it does).