Editors Reads Verdict
Hinton's second novel is darker and more morally complex than The Outsiders — a story about the dissolution of male friendship under the pressures of maturity, drugs, and moral divergence that remains one of YA fiction's most honest explorations of growing up.
What We Loved
- The central friendship is rendered with emotional specificity that makes its dissolution genuinely painful
- Hinton resists easy moral resolution — Bryon's act at the novel's end is not presented as clearly right
- The drug subplot reflects the real cultural landscape of early 1970s teenage life
Minor Drawbacks
- The world is again almost entirely male, with female characters serving primarily as catalysts
- The ending is bleak in ways some readers find unresolved
Key Takeaways
- → Growing up requires leaving behind relationships that cannot grow with you — and that loss is real
- → Loyalty to a person can conflict irreconcilably with loyalty to what is right
- → Drug culture is not glamorous; it destroys the people least equipped to survive it
| Author | S.E. Hinton |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Pages | 159 |
| Published | January 1, 1971 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young Adult, Coming-of-Age |
The Darker Sequel
S.E. Hinton’s follow-up to The Outsiders is a quieter, more psychologically complex book, and in some ways a more mature one. The gang world of the first novel is still present, but the story’s real subject is the interior life of Bryon Douglas as he begins to change in ways that place him in direct conflict with his best friend Mark — the boy he has thought of as a brother since childhood.
Bryon and Mark have grown up together in the same economic precarity, using charm, small-time hustling, and mutual loyalty to navigate a world that doesn’t offer them much. But Bryon is beginning to reflect in ways that Mark is not. His relationship with Cathy, his growing awareness of consequences, his capacity for guilt — these are the changes that will ultimately make their friendship impossible.
The Question of Moral Development
What Hinton explores, with more sophistication than the coming-of-age genre usually allows, is the question of whether moral development is itself a form of loss. Bryon becomes more ethical in some respects — more capable of empathy, more troubled by the drug culture around him — but his final act, turning Mark in to the police, is presented not as triumph but as something closer to tragedy. He does what he believes is right and in doing so destroys what he loved most.
Mark’s response — his withdrawal into silence, his refusal to ever forgive — is the novel’s most chilling element. It suggests that loyalty, once absolute and then broken, cannot be partially restored.
A Portrait of Early 1970s Youth
The novel’s drug subplot captures something real about the cultural landscape of the early 1970s: the casual availability of drugs, the way they moved through working-class youth culture, and the specific vulnerability of teenagers with nothing to anchor them. M&M, the young boy whose mind is destroyed by a bad trip, is the novel’s most heartbreaking casualty — a child who drifted into danger because no one was watching and the world is not organized to protect people like him.
Our rating: 4.1/5 — A darker, more morally complex companion to The Outsiders, asking hard questions about loyalty, maturity, and what it costs to do the right thing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "That Was Then, This Is Now" about?
Bryon and Mark have been inseparable since childhood — more brothers than friends — but as they move into their mid-teens, Bryon begins to change in ways that will make their bond impossible to sustain.
What are the key takeaways from "That Was Then, This Is Now"?
Growing up requires leaving behind relationships that cannot grow with you — and that loss is real Loyalty to a person can conflict irreconcilably with loyalty to what is right Drug culture is not glamorous; it destroys the people least equipped to survive it
Is "That Was Then, This Is Now" worth reading?
Hinton's second novel is darker and more morally complex than The Outsiders — a story about the dissolution of male friendship under the pressures of maturity, drugs, and moral divergence that remains one of YA fiction's most honest explorations of growing up.
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