The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is by far one of my most favorited and close to heart novels. I’ve grown up reading this book but only recently have I seen the movie. Now, going into the movie I had very high expectations considering the big-time actors from young Rob Lowe to Tom Cruise and the storyline involved that is taken from the book.

This is a classic rivalry of the wealthy versus poor. The overall summary of the book and movie is a teenage boy, Sodapop (C. Thomas Howell), growing up in a gang called the Greasers who are the cliche 80s gang-kids. Leather jackets and cigarettes and irrelevant fighting. Stirring up trouble must be their hobby, considering Sodapop is raised by his older brother, with no real parental authority.

Sodapop and his best friend, Johnny (Ralph Macchio), are just trying to live their lives and stay out of the way of the kids from across the tracks, Socs. The Socs are your above life itself preppy rich kids. When tragedy for the Socs, it forces some Greasers to go into hiding due to what lies close ahead.

The book to movie rendition is fairly close, although if I had not have read the book I don’t think I would’ve understood the movie as much as I did. There are parts of the book that were very significant but in the movie they were shown as common details. The book has so many symbolic parts but the movie simply brushed over them. Many important scenes were also cut out entirely.

The actors was probably the best part of the movie altogether. The right people were chosen to play the parts and they looked and acted exactly as I expected them to.

The movie is just like any other Greaser movie. From Rebel without a Cause to American Graffiti, it is just another showing. The actors were similar but the only difference between them was the ending of The Outsiders.

The book, however, was written beautifully. S.E. Hinton knows exactly how to portray the storyline in the correct manner.  The stereotypes and the social groups were not to the extreme, but extreme enough to get the point across. It showed the viewpoint of the Greasers when it is usually focused on the point of the rich kids.

Perhaps it was because this is my childhood novel or that it was because I absolutely adored the writing, but the book is definitely my number one pick when it comes to these two adaptations.

While I would not recommend this movie as my first pick on 80s films, I would recommend the book before anything else. If you’ve seen the movie and are now uninteresting in reading the book, don’t be. Just know there is a fine line of the book and movie. While they have the same storylines, somehow they are very different in showing emotion and morals throughout both. The Outsiders is also a book that can have many different interpretations.

Overall the book moving onto screen may not have been the best choice for this it, but in the book it was the perfect creation of a high school during the 80s.