That was then, This is now by S. E. Hinton is a breath-taking novel on brotherly love turning into intense hatred by a single action. Hinton arises all emotions in a reader through a basic story, told with creativity. A story about two close friends (two magnets), who get separated forever when one friend chooses to put the other behind bars because it was the right thing to do. Bryon takes a close look at two things before making the tough, but clear decision of his life: the bottle of pills underneath the bed of Mark and Mark bringing large amounts of money home, without any apparent job. It was then obvious that Mark was selling drugs to provide money to his family, without notifying his family members. The drugs that Mark was selling were changing the lives of Bryon’s close friends negatively. Bryon’s girlfriend, Cathy was wearing herself down seeing her brother, M&M damaging his brain taking the drugs. Bryon had taking enough of Mark doing the “wrong” things that were not only having an effect of his own life, it was making the lives of other intolerable. Bryon picked up the phone and called the police to get Mark, his best friend, arrested. This call could have cost the life of Mark or years behind bars, but Bryon called. No, this is not where the story ends. Bryon’s attitude changes completely, he loses his love (Cathy), and most importantly Mark starts hating Bryon. One good decision to give a new route to the lives of all people ended up ruining everyone’s life.
Was this a good decision? If was in the shoes of Bryon, I would have talked to Mark. I would try to change his perspective of life by putting myself in front, the person he cared the most about. That would have been enough to change Mark. This would have changed Mark into a more responsible person. Not a person, who viewed laws and rules as nothing but words, but took those seriously.
This book took strong topics and put them in front of the readers. It showed the difference in the past and the present, the “then” and the “now.” One pair of those topics was love and hate. The love between two brothers changed to hate. In addition Bryon got poor from rich. It isn’t the richness in the means of money, it the richness in the relationships. He started from support of Mark, his gang, M&M, Charlie, Cathy and more. At the end he lost all the relationships. This novel also showed: good and bad, close and far, outsiders and insider, and friend and enemy.
This book was a great book to read. It taught me to give importance to each relationship because you don’t know what tomorrow has in store with you. The person you love the most today, can be the person you hate the most tomorrow. Take decisions of your life carefully and the decisions that are going to have a effect on other people’s lives.
