That Was Then, This is Now by S.E Hinton

Two teenage boys Mark and Bryon have been living together for a very long time due to the loss of Mark's parents. Mark and Bryon have different personalities. Bryon likes to date different women containing many different kinds of characteristics such as Cathy while Mark isn't into encountering intimate relationships but although he really likes to try living the wild life of his own. During a typical day or evening, they would go to a bar so they could play a regular game of pool and they would always talk to Charlie about the Coke loans they have (mostly Bryon though). It is true that these two boys have been living their lives together as if they are really brothers but things in life seem to change. Mark is involved in a case where he has to sell drugs in order to help his family earn money and Bryon is the only one that knows which leads to him making a very hard decision. Should Bryon rat out Mark to the police or be kept quiet and let the proper authorities find out themselves?

When I first read this book, I thought it was a pretty decent one. It wasn't that bad taking a look at and I thought the cover looked pretty cool. In my opinion, I am in a neutral state in this book. It wasn't too good or too bad. Just okay itself. I have also read the sequel to this novel which is "The Outsiders" and I thought that it was a better novel than this. I'm not necessarily saying that this is actually a very bad thing to read though. Although in some of the scenes the book really got me good. I think that anyone can read this book even though there is some foul language so maybe I would not recommend a preteen reading this, such as an 11 or 12 year old. And there is a movie adaptation so maybe I would recommend a teen that is around 14 or 15 years old watching the film because the film tends to have more violence rather than foul language.

Reviewed by Hannah R., Grade 10
Downtown Central Library