Daily Prompt: Second Time Around.
Tell us about a book you can read again and again without getting bored — what is it that speaks to you?
There are many books but one in particular is the one that actually is the tie that helped form the friendship between my best friend and I.
S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” was a book I first read in the sixth or seventh grade for English class. It was a book that quite possibly changed my life. It was as if Susie had written the book about social standings and the troubles that came with being poor and on the rough side of town. Of being harassed daily because you weren’t one of the jet set. I had a copy of this book for the entirety of my middle school (grades 6/7-8) and into high school that I always kept with me. If it wasn’t tucked into my backpack, it was in the inner pocket of my leather jacket or in my hoodie pocket.
In the summer it came with me in the side pocket of my cargo shorts. I used to take walks to the park in the early morning and read my favourite chapters, and then I discovered Susie wrote a whole slew of books based upon the greasers and in that ‘world’ (That Was Then, This Is Now, Rumble Fish and Tex). I read all of them but The Outsiders was my favourite and in a way, was a security blanket for me.
If I am packing to go stay with my aunt a few hours away, that book comes with me. If I am taking a Greyhound, Coach Canada or GO bus long distance – that book is in my carry-on, and considering it was the fandom surrounding that book which led me to meet my best friend (who had been living just down the street from me my entire life, and we never crossed paths), who now, is still my best friend some ten years later, this book means a lot to me. There is definitely sentimental value, and the storyline itself still speaks to me some 15 years later.
If you get the chance to read this book, I recommend you pick up the “Complete Novel” of the movie just to listen to the commentary between Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane and Tommy Howell. It tells a lot of what the book meant to each actor that mentions it. I feel like I should be able to write more but it’s 5am and I’m at a Tim Horton’s and thus, distracted as hell because there are so many people coming in.
lycanthrosexual 