S.E. Hinton Classic Collection: Rumble Fish, Some of Tim's Stories, Taming the Star Runner, and Tex

by S.E. Hinton

Four gripping, intense novels from “the author who changed the way that books for teens were written” (The New Yorker).   With millions of copies sold, S.E. Hinton’s novels have inspired readers of all ages for generations. This volume includes four of the award-winning author’s most compelling books.   In Rumble Fish, two brothers discover how the bond of blood can be as tight as a “Packs a punch that will leave readers of any age reeling.”—School Library Journal   In Taming the Star Runner, a horse provides an opportunity for escape to a troubled young aspiring “A powerful story.”—Kirkus Reviews   In Tex, a boy goes looking for trouble, but might find redemption “An utterly disarming, believable portrait of a small-town adolescent.”—The New York Times   And in Some of Tim’s Stories, a bartender recounts the story of two lives torn apart by “Immediate and gripping.”—School Library Journal

553 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 2014

About the author

S.E. Hinton, was and still is, one of the most popular and best known writers of young adult fiction. Her books have been taught in some schools, and banned from others. Her novels changed the way people look at young adult literature.

Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has always enjoyed reading but wasn't satisfied with the literature that was being written for young adults, which influenced her to write novels like The Outsiders. That book, her first novel, was published in 1967 by Viking.

Reviews

[Lora Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was time to catch up with SE Hinton!

This collection of four novels of SE Hinton, who wrote “the Outsiders” when she was a high school student in Tulsa was a revelation for me; I finally had time to read some of her works that came after “ The Outsiders”, which I have enjoyed so much over the years. And getting to see musical when it came out last year in NYC and when it came to Tulsa first on the Broadway tour this year was a revelation for me; it really is brilliant writing, emotional and yet relatable and I respect her immensely. I enjoyed these works, which were surprisingly good, and especially the interview at the end of the book that was conducted over four days in 2006. They went in depth into her books, her writing process, what fame at such a young age was like, making movies, and having a life outside of writing. I recommend it!

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Some of Tim's Stories" seems exactly that. These are loosely relatable stories with characters concerned with all kinds of issues and situations for the two protagonists, friends, and stars of this book, Mike and Terry. In "Full Moon Birthday" both protagonists receives a surprise full moon in the sky as of Friday the 13th, the date of his birthday, but after a bar altercation where he and his friend are chased into the river, his favorite fishing rod, tackle and ice chest are stolen overnight while he and his friend are asleep in a local cabin in Trinidad, CO. The biggest surprise presented to both protagonists (which neither male can wrap their heads around) is the offhand remark which the waitress in the restaurant makes when she says, "Trinidad is the sex change capital of the world." For both. protagonists, this means that the men who had chased them and then later showed up at the. same restaurant where they were breakfasting ought to have been born women. Wholly reminiscent on the whole of the murder of Michael Shepherd on the Colorado-Wyoming border. A story of similar caliber which was handled much better in terms of its literary development and conclusion was T. Correghessan Boyle's "GREASY LAKE," found in his story collection of the same name.
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"Different Shorelines" (a stream of consciousness vignette told in flashbacks) with cousins Mike. and Terry being drunk at the lake. Mike returns from the lake. It seems Terry has killed someone, so he ends up in prison. Since Terry is "just not there," Mike can only reminisce with his Aunt Julie (nicknamed "Jelly" here) and dog Amos about when and why his twin cousin Terry remains incarcerated.

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In "What's Your Poison?" Mike has taken on a job as a bartender. After three years, he still doesn't intend to quit, because his job description dictates that he give customers
"what they are thirsty for,"including the man who swore he saw a U.F.O. outside of town.

This story is the most straightfrward of all of "Some of Tim's Stories," aptly because it suffers from using the "boy, have I got a whopper of a story to tell for you," literary 'trope' which is all too common in both social media, social discourse between others, and literary one–upmanship in the world of both literary workshopping and fiction publishing in the world today.

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"The Girl Who Loved Movies" reads like a character sketch straight from the literary bowels of none other than T. Coraghessan Boyle. Again, the plot is marred because of the all too ubiquitous and familiar "boy meets girl, boy falls in love with and gets girl," only to end with the literary trope of
"boy loses girl and then lets her go, not realizing what with whom he had" during their relationship, however brief. It's (you guessed it) "just like in the movies"
for THE GIRL WHO LOVED MOVIES. (Don't we all? Isn't that always "just how it is?")

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In the story "Sentenced" the reader finally learns why Mike's cousin Terry lands in prison. With an extra gun in the car and a drug deal gone bad, the final straw that breaks the camel's back is a murder, just like on Peter Falk's "COLUMBO."

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In the story "Jailed" cousin Mike simply falls into a drunken stupor reminiscing about how and why his twin cousin Terry wound up in jail while He didn't.

Q: What kind of literary cliche is that?
A: An all too common one.

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With the story "The Sweetest Sound" we learn that cousin Mike has become an exact duplicate of his tell–all father.

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RUMBLE FISH recounts the memories of Motorcycle Boy, Biff, and Steve during their "glory days" in their prepubescent years when "rumbling" meant all or nothing to the neighborhood gangs you dissed with. In the end it was all about who had your back when the "rumble" was over. Regardless of time or place, one ought never tell who had your back, because if they did tattle, they'd be "gutted" like a" "fish" in a rumble later, knife blade struck in throat, ribs, stomach, whatever; hence the title of the novel. A no-brainer for this one. Now if only the protagonists had actual brains enough not to "rumble" in the first place like teenaged juvenile delinquents from James Dean's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, or even the turgid misogynistic backdrop of BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, with 'Rock Around The Clock' by Bill Hayley and his Comets being the anthem for an up and coming altogether newly minted post war adolescents with way too much time on their hands.