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Nov 26, 2007

Jessica rated it:

There must be a reason why I've been able to recall many of the books I've read over the years, but that it took me until one of my most restless and procrastibatory nights in front of the blank Word doc to dredge this one up from the recesses of memory, even though I read it within the past year or two.

I'm pretty sure I know what that reason is, too: it's because on some level I'm embarrassed that I read this book, and that I actually really liked it.

I'm pretty sure I kn More...

11 comments like (22 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Matt rated it:

this is a horrifying book, not necessarily for the story's content (which IS horrifying), but for it's plot, execution, characterization, and particularly its overcooked writing.

some observations:

1) astrid. the novel's protagonist, a fourteen year old girl, is a thoroughly contradictory character. some people have written that astrid is not your 'average' teenage girl and that she is 'gifted.' if she were such a girl, i would expect much more of her. i'm not a psycholog More...

16 comments like (26 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2011

Athira rated it:

I had heard previously how good/bad this book is. Most people have been powerfully affected by it. They either really liked it or really disliked it. After reading it, I could see how it could sway you in either ways. You could either take the story at face value and be swayed by it, as I did, or you could critically analyze it and call upon its credibility.

My opinion
Janet Fitch writes White Oleander in a very eloquent style. Poetic writing is not some thing I enjoy usually (si More...

14 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Michael rated it:

Gritted my teeth to get through this and see what happened. The story itself is interesting, but the writing was so fussy and melodramatically overwrought that I wanted to toss the book away. Kept going only because I wanted to understand people's strong response to it.

3 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Niya rated it:

This is my all time favorite book. I love the character Astrid, and enjoyed seeing her played by Alison Lohman in the movie. I wish there were more books like this one.

4 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2008

Faith-Anne rated it:

If nothing else, read this book for the language. White Oleander reads like a poem. It's so beautifully crafted.

3 comments like (31 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2008

Nateah rated it:

I can't forget her story. It's like a precise etching tatooed on the center of my brain. Her pain is my pain, her fears are my fears, her life...becomes mine. I take every word from her illustrated existance, using it as my own bible to crawl through this enraged wilderness where the grass is made of needles, the trees are crawling with serpants, and the water is too tanged to drink....
I taste the saltiness of her tears as they stream down her face, burning, leaving behind scars of i More...

1 comment like (12 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2007

Logan rated it:

I am normally exceedingly wary of anything that Oprah puts her mark on and avoid it like the plague. However, after years of being recommended this book by many people who's opinions on such things I respect I finally pulled it off the bookshelf. Let me be the first to tell you: I have never been more appreciative of my friends. This book was phenomenal!

Following the trials and tribulations of one Astrid Magnusson, the book takes you first from her idyllic life with her poet/ic More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2008

Shep rated it:

This book is the tale of a girl with a warrior poetess for a mother. When her mother kills a boyfriend and is imprisoned the girl is thrown into California's foster care system. There she experiences ignorance, abuse, and need, and love in equal measure, and tries to grow up, while struggling with her anger with her mother for abandoning her.

Orphans generally make sympathetic protagonists. One can't help but hope things will get better for someone who has lost everything, who is More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Bonnie rated it:

After hearing so much about this Oprah-acclaimed book, I finally sat down to read it. The plot had some major potential and I was getting really interested, right when the protagonist landed in a horrible foster home where she began an illicit affair with her foster mom's 40-year-old boyfriend (did i mention the main character is about 14?). The author vividly describes the sexual details of this relationship, as well as the mom and boyfriend's bedroom behaviors. If that wasn't enough, the day t More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Kelly rated it:

I only wish there were a star less than one. I wish I could remove stars. I wish there were a star deficit rating.

This book almost made me give up reading all together. It is definitely the last book I trusted from Oprah. I still think she owes me money and those days of my life back.

It was page after page of the most depressing writing I've ever read with absolutely no pay off.

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Xavier rated it:

White Oleander. Oleander is a beautiful flower. It's whiteness suggests a pure, innocent quality, but it is anything but innocent. Oleander is an extremely poisonous plant, and it works as a good symbol of Astrid's mother Ingrid. Ingrid is extremely beautiful, blonde, pale, tall, graceful. She makes men's heads turn. But she is also wrathful, manipulative, and a murderer. It's hard to see the good in Ingrid, but this book is so complex that the lines between good and bad blur.

What is k More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2011

Smash rated it:

This book was an escape from my usual paranormal smut and urban fantasy adventures, and it is so worth the change in scenery. I had to read the book for my Vulnerable Children class, where I am learning about the child welfare system. It was a poignant tale of one girl’s tumultuous journey through the foster care system and will no doubt leave your jaw hanging on many occasion. As a human being, you will be horrified at the life that Astrid must endure after her mother is sent to prison for murd More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 14, 2010

Nicola rated it:

Is there a book that you hate and yet you can’t stop re-reading? White Oleander is mine. It’s a wrist-slittingly depressing book and Janet Fitch seems to take masochistic pleasure in inflicting pain on her protagonist. In the world of White Oleander, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

By rights, when I first read this book, perhaps five years ago, I should have finished it, branded it “beautiful but flawed” and never touched it again. Alas, that is not the case. I’ve re-read More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2008

Simeon rated it:

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking, “This really sounds like she’s ripping off Kate Braverman.” So I turn to the interview at the back, and lo and behold, she cites Braverman as a “mentor.” If there were any justice in this universe, Braverman would have received royalties from White Oleander and the resulting movie, because Janet Fitch has appropriated her style, her subject matter, and the mood of her books.

Braverman’s Small Craft Warnings and Squandering the Blue are sh More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Cat rated it:

Due in part, perhaps, to the influx of "unfortunate teenage girl" novels in the mid-to-late nineties (I think here of books like _She's Come Undone_ and _The Virgin Suicides_), I avoided Fitch's book for a while (the Oprah's Book Club stigma also contributed). And while the story line did manage to keep me up and at it until 2 am last night, I must say: I'm unconvinced.

Also, spoilers. I don't review books to keep them a secret from people who haven't read them; I review th More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 29, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

I'm mildly surprised to find myself giving this book four stars, but what can I say? I ended up really liking a lot of things about the story and the author in general. It would be easy enough to go through and pick out all the flaws in the story, but that's already been done.
Astrid's story is engaging, and there are many colorful characters in the book who are quite well-developed considering their short tenure in Astrid's life. The author skillfully uses small details about each char More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2008

Megan rated it:

My aunt bought me this book for Christmas one year and at first I was really disappointed. I thought "Oh, that's nice... because I like to read you just got me the Oprah book club book of the month... thanks." But then I read it, and I'm now convinced that my aunt knows me better than maybe many of my close friends or better than I know myself. Not to be all cheesy and over-identify with something that isn't about me; but this book REALLY hit home for me in describing my relationship w More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Madeline rated it:

Janet Fitch has an amazing gift for writing novels centered around protagonists that are flawed and scarred, while at the same time making her audience identify with and even love these characters because of their imperfections. Take Astrid, the main character of White Oleander. At the beginning of the story, Astrid's mother goes to jail for poisoning an ex-boyfriend and Astrid is placed in a series of foster homes. During the course of the story, Astrid sleeps with her foster father (at age thi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 08, 2007

Adrianne rated it:

I couldn't put this book down for the first half, but the second half really lagged for me. The tragic things that happen to this girl are just too much: I started to feel manipulated into staying interested in it: the plot felt too carefully orchestrated in its horrific developments, like an episode of Ricki Lake or -- dare I say -- Jerry Springer. Just when you start thinking things couldn't get much worse for the protagonist (mom in jail, all possessions lost, sex with foster dad, shot by fos More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sarah rated it:

i picked up this book for $5 at borders and thought...hmmm...i'll give it a shot. well, i couldn't put it down. the writing is just incredible, making it easy to get addicted. the writing flows from topic to topic effortlessly. the strength of this book is definitely in the descriptions of the people and places.

the plot on the other hand, while it stays strong through the first half, borders on the ridiculous near the end. the main character is shuffled between foster homes in t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2009

Alisa rated it:

Do you remember that episode of Friends when Rachel convinces Joey to read "Little Women," and when he gets to the part of the book where Beth gets sick Joey wants to put the book in the freezer? That is totally how I felt while reading this book. Every tragedy that Astrid endured, every foster home she went to that turned out to be less than nurturing, I didn't think I could continue reading and I just wanted to put the book in the freezer! But Fitch's artful storytelling kept me g More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2007

Catherine rated it:

The character wasn't charming or likable, which was why I removed one star. But the realism of her struggle and the deterioration of various human conditions were strikingly well-written. What she rose above in the end wasn't so much as a victor with the benefit of a revelation, but as a remorseful adult regressing to an evil she can't separate from because she's known it all her life (her mother). And her future seemed to be hindered by her weaknesses, which isn't the love she had for her mo More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 02, 2010

Rhonda Rae rated it:

You won't be able to put this one down. A psychological thriller that has many twists and such depth you wonder how anyone could survive and be a normal person.

I was drawn because of the mother-daughter tension and surprised to relate to what was happening because I've known some children manipulated by their parent just as this. It was maddening to see how the mother twisted reality and easy to relate to the daughter who was struggling to find herself amist such deception.

More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Shaindel rated it:

This is a fast-paced, fun novel.

My BIG problem with White Oleander is that I was working on my novel, got into a graduate program based on the first four chapters, then went to a different grad school for poetry instead, scrapped novel-writing for a while--and then White Oleander comes out, and I thought--Oh. My. God. That's my novel! Not exactly, but enough to be frustrating that someone else did it first. And so well. So I honestly don't know when I'll get over this and finish More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 25, 2009

Amy rated it:

My favorite book of all time! Have read it like 12 times. So beautifully written the imagery seeps of the page and echoes in your brain long after you have closed the pages. I know that I am perhaps the only one that notices this but I am deeply enamored with the way Janet (the author, when you have read a book more than a dozen times you get to call the author by their first name) constructs sentences, I can't help but notice her grammar, sentence fluency, and word choice. The way she can wri More...

0 comments like

Feb 06, 2009

Courtney rated it:

I give this book 2 stars because when I initially read this book in in summer 04 I was in deed 14 and at the time of reading it I was a homeless teenager living on the streets of Santa Ana so in fact I could on some levels identify with this book but after reading it again recently I began to reconsider my views on Astrid. I began to realize that what makes Janet Fitch's work so appealing is the use of metaphors and and the fact that she is very descriptive in her writing which leaves much to th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2009

Ashley rated it:

I just got done reading the book called White Oleander by Janet Fitch. It’s an excellent story about a girl named Astrid who moves from foster home to foster home because her mother was sent to prison for the murder of her “boyfriend.” This book is great for people who like to read sad and possibly true stories. My favorite character in the book is probably Astrid’s mother Ingrid. Ingrid is very artsy and poetic, she teaches Astrid lessons and shares the way she thinks strong women should be. I More...

1 comment like

Jan 09, 2009

Lesli rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 31, 2008

Michelle rated it:

"Oleander time," she said. "Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind."

Ingird Magnussen is sent to prison for murder and has left behind her daughter, Astrid to be sent into foster care. The story tells of the different foster homes Astrid finds herself in. The different worlds, the different rules, and different lessons.

Throughout the book and through the different families Astird belongs to, one thing is constant. Leaving. While read More...

1 comment like

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