"Stay Gold"A considerable achievement considering the age (17) of the author, "The Outsiders" is a well crafted, thoughtful young adult novel with a natural, flowing plot and believable and sympathetic characters. Whilst otherwise an enjoyable, effortless quick read, "The Outsiders" does suffer from some excessively moral messages that tie up the issues and threads raised in the book too simply, leaving the reader little room to consider their own personal interpretation of the text.