American author S. E. Hinton is best known for her debut novel, The Outsiders, which she wrote while she was in her teens. With its realistic depiction of teenage life as she knew it in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the 1960s, the novel became a bestseller and remains an important text within the young adult genre. That Was Then, This Is Now, Hinton’s second novel, shares several themes and a few characters with the earlier novel. Ponyboy Curtis, the protagonist of The Outsiders, briefly appears in That Was Then, This Is Now as does Randy, a wealthy young man who feels guilty about class divisions. Tim and Curly Shepherd likewise appear in both novels, while their sister Angela first appears in the second novel.

By including recurring characters in supporting roles, Hinton establishes continuity and connections between her works while allowing room for new perspectives. While The Outsiders centers on the tensions between rival social and economic classes—the greasers and the Socs—That Was Then, This Is Now centers on the fractured relationship between two people from similar backgrounds. It also reveals a slightly later timeframe, allowing Hinton to draw attention to subtle cultural and historical shifts, such as the wealthy students’ superficial friendship with the poorer students, as well as their painstaking efforts to dress like the poorer students, even at great expense.