Im 14 and I gotta say the Outsiders was way better. Kids arent stupid we know that using LSD one time wont completely f you up. Also whats with the depressing ending?

Its a very good book and can educate kids about the effects of drugs.

Personally, I love S.E.Hinton, and this book is no differnt. The only thing that makes me say 11 and up is that there is alot of referance to drugs, it does look down upon it in a way, but reading it made me uncomfertable.

Well, definatly in comparrison to The Outsiders, the book was a small blimp on my chart of good books, but it wasn't servirly bad. This book does need a very mature mind reading it, due to the fact one child has a very bad LSD trip which is desribed VERY vividly (shouting 'The spiders kept coming into my stomache, showing me the colours, I never knew the colours were so bad. then they were eating the colours'), although it is not glorified it can be shocking to some because it is screeched out loud many times. Also, one boy sells drugs, claiming 'if they didn't get it from me they would have just gotten it from someone else', this boy is sent to jail. A man is shot by texans. Violence is a little extreme. A little bit of language, not sevirly bad. It is an okay book, and the main character does somewhat find the error of his ways in the end, but looses his best friend.

This book was definitely not as good as The Outsiders..... it had a brutal plot, no exciting events, and basically, the weak messages that were given were getting old, because S.E. Hinton uses the same idea over and over again. I would say that this book is definitely NOT a must-read like The Outsiders, so to readers considering this book, pick another one!

it sucked