White Oleander: A Novel

published	2001 by Little, Brown and Company
binding	Mass Market Paperback
isbn	0316182540 (isbn13: 9780316182546)
pages	496
description	Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999: Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, h...more [close] Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999: Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self-pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes. As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, White Oleander uncoils her existential anxieties. "Who was I, really?" she asks. "I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces." Fitch adroitly leads Astrid down a path of sorting out her past and identity. In the process, this girl develops a wire-tight inner strength, gains her mother's white-blonde beauty, and achieves some measure of control over their relationship. Even from prison, Ingrid tries to mold her daughter. Foiling her, Astrid learns about tenderness from one foster mother and how to stand up for herself from another. Like the weather in Los Angeles--the winds of the Santa Anas, the scorching heat--Astrid's teenage life is intense. Fitch's novel deftly displays that, and also makes Astrid's life meaningful. --Katherine Anderson Thirteen-year-old Astrid Magnussen, the sensitive and heart-wrenching narrator of this impressive debut, is burdened with an impossible mother in Ingrid, a beautiful, gifted poet whose scattered life is governed by an enormous ego. When Ingrid goes to prison for murdering her ex-lover, Astrid enters the Los Angeles foster care program and is placed with a series of brilliantly characterized families. Astrid's first home is with Starr, a born-again former druggie, whose boyfriend, middle-aged Ray, encourages Astrid to paint (Astrid's absent father is an artist) and soon becomes her first lover, but who disappears when Starr's jealousy becomes violent. Astrid finds herself next at the mercy of a new, tyrannical foster mom, Marvel Turlock, who grows wrathful at the girl's envy of a sympathetic next-door prostitute's luxurious life. "Never hope to find people who will understand you," Ingrid archly advises as her daughter's Dickensian descent continues in the household of sadistic Amelia Ramos, where Astrid is reduced to pilfering food from garbage cans. Then she's off to the dream home of childless yuppies Claire and Ron Richards, who shower her with gifts, art lessons and the warmth she's been craving. But this new development piques Ingrid's jealousy, and Astrid, now 17 and a high school senior, falls into the clutches of the entrepreneurial Rena Grushenka. Amid Rena's flea-market wares, Astrid learns to fabricate junk art and blossoms as a sculptor. Meanwhile, Ingrid, poet-in-prison, becomes a feminist icon who now has a chance at freedomAif Astrid will agree to testify untruthfully at the trial. Astrid's difficult choice yields unexpected truths about her hidden past, and propels her already epic story forward, with genuinely surprising and wrenching twists. Fitch is a splendid stylist; her prose is graceful and witty; the dialogue, especially Astrid's distinctive utterances and loopy adages, has a seductive pull. This sensitive exploration of the mother-daughter terrain (sure to be compared to Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here) offers a convincing look at what Adrienne Rich has called "this womanly splitting of self," in a poignant, virtuosic, utterly captivating narrative [close]
date added	01-09-07 edit book

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Jessica rated it:

11/26/07

bookshelves: california-über-alles, chicklits, crazy-ladies

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: secret members of oprah's book club

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 know where that em...more 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 know where that embarrassment comes from, too: it's rooted in some pretty deep-level misogyny and discomfort about my most womany womanliness, or something like that anyway....

This book is the most Oprahiest Book Clubby selection I've ever read in my life. It's also the most estrogened-out, hyper-womany fiction I can even begin to think of. All the criticisms and stereotypes I (and a lot of you) hold about lady lit are present here, by the bundle: poetic, even overwrought language; melodramatic plotting; over-the-top characters; vivid, sensual description; almost fetishistic focus on sex, sexuality, and relationships.... aw, crap, I don't even know what my dreadful vestigial stereotypes about women's fiction are, only I'm 10,000% sure this book fulfilled all of them. It's called WHITE FUKKIN OLEANDER, for PETE'S SAKE!!!

Here's where the internalized misogyny comes in, of course, because WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT??? This book was far from perfect, there are some valid and gender-neutral criticisms I have of it, but it was good, and I enjoyed it, and the fact is that I apparently find this somehow embarrassing, and on some level must think I should really be digging on Chuck Palahniuk or Ernest Hemingway or that guy who writes those series books about old-timey sailing ships that middle-aged men love so much.... Like that is way more respectable or something. ARGH!!! Have all these thousands of dollars and book-hours spent on feminist indoctrination been for naught??? I ENJOYED WHITE OLEANDER! Yes, of course it did get a bit too silly for me at times, but on the whole I THOUGHT IT WAS A PRETTY GOOD STORY!

Okay, it was melodramatic, but that's part of what made it good. It's about this blonde shorty with a crazy, really horrid white witch of a psycho blonde poet mother, who is scorned by this chumpy-seeming LA cheeseball in a Hawaiian shirt, and hell hath no fury like a psycho poet lady, the mom kills guy, goes to prison, blah blah blah.... So the kid, Astrid -- or maybe Ingrid? -- I forget -- winds up in foster care, and the book is her bouncing around from LA foster home to foster home and experiencing, as my own mother put it, all these different types of moms.

Like Push, another book I need to review, there are moments you cannot believe the author was able to type with a straight face. You're like, "NO, come ON, this is RIDICULOUS! You can't POSSIBLY make ANOTHER outlandishly bad thing happen to this poor defenseless character! Pull yourself together Janet, I CAN'T take this seriously." Like at one point the girl gets attacked by a dog, and I actually started laughing. BUT NONE OF IT IS MORE RIDICULOUS THAN JUDE THE OBSCURE, WHICH WAS NOT, LAST TIME I CHECKED, PART OF OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB. LADY WRITERS DO NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY ON THIS KIND OF PATHOS!

Anyway, I liked this book. I can't believe I'm so defensive about it! I must really have issues. But does anyone else on here know what I mean? I noticed that NONE of my friends have read this book, which makes me wonder whether there are others among us who have somehow "forgotten," as I had myself, until I sat down tonight to write a paper.

BTW, I tried reading part of this years ago, when the author visited my college writing class (she had gone to my school), and I couldn't choke it down that first time. BUT, Ms. Fitch did tell a good story about Oprah calling her personally to say she was in the book club, which I won't repeat here because... I have run out of characters....less

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Matt rated it:

01/15/08

recommends it for: sad girls

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 psychologist nor have i e...more 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 psychologist nor have i ever been shot, but i suspect any fourteen year old girl who's mother was sent to prison for murder, who offered herself sexually to a man three times her age, is shot by her first foster mother, performs oral sex on a boy in exchange for 1/2 bag of marijuana would be SEVERLY emotionally disturbed and troubled. astrid, however, seems to care less that she was nearly murdered. instead she focuses on and longs for her sexual encounters with ray. remember, this is a FOURTEEN year old girl. astrid blows her credibility as a narrator very early on because no one who's gone through her experiences would be in as good as shape as she is. it also discredits her as a character, and with a discredited character, the novel doesn't stand a chance. think about a fourteen year old girl you know. now imagine her beaten, shot, mother in prison for murder, sexually loose, and yearning for a lover three times her age. it simply wouldn't happen.

2) the plot: i have trouble with any novel where the plot is advanced by a series of tragedies or dire circumstances. more often than not, it's a gimmick (or crutch) inexperienced writers rely on when realistic ideas for authentic plots run thin. read joan didion or toni morrison (or steinbeck) and how see how they use tragedy--it's real, honest, and most importanly believable. most of the 'white oleander's' is simply too unrealistic.

3) the prose: borderline comical. i'm awe-struck to read how many people have praised fitch's prose. fitch's use of similie is so overdone and forced that it slows the narrative down to a snail's pace. similes should be used judiciously and flow naturally. fitch, on the other hand, find it's necessary to inject as many as four or five similies in just about every paragraph, and most of them just ring false. the 'white' metaphor is also an unfortunate victim. count the number of times fitch uses 'white' to describe astrid, ingrid, clothes, food, dishes, the sky. she beats the 'white' metaphor and never lets the reader decipher it for themselves. the majority of the book is over-described; the sex scenes, in particular, are dreadful. i don't want to read how a fourteen year old remembers every graphic detail of performing oral sex on a middle-aged man. it's too much. a 14 year old girl who's performed oral sex on a man is not going to long for it again. i can tell you that. furthermore: at one point astrid sees a shiny convertible, compares it to a man, and imagines herself climaxing while laying on its hood; during her encounter with ray, she describes the act as riding a horse through the surf. good grief.

4) the characters and uniformly cliched and poorly drawn. astrid's mother is the self-absorbed, feminist poet. her first foster mother is a bible-thumping floozy; her stepmother's boyfriend is the object of astrid's desires, even though he's more then three times her age; the second stepmother is demanding and her husband is quiet and reserved; and of course we have the 'hooker with a heart of gold' who takes astrid under her wing. in fact, the professional prostitute is the only emotionally stable and 'nice' character in the entire 150 pages that i read.

i'm sure that as most of the teenage girls grow up and mature, they'll see 'white oleander' for what is is: an immature novel masquerading as high literature. and i sincerely hope that no more young women identify with astrid in any way. that's the real tragedy....less

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Cat rated it:

07/10/08

bookshelves: escapism, meh

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in July, 2008

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 them to sh...more 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 them to share my opinions with people who have.

The heroine is a supposedly precocious 12?-year-old girl whose mother, jilted, murders her old lover using some pretty romantic and home-remedy style poisons. Astrid, the daughter, worships her mother based (as we find out later in a kind of tangental and almost unnecessary addition to the denouement) on some major abandonment issues. Her mother, Ingrid, a "poet", is wildly self-absorbed and disregards her daughter except when convenient. Fitch's job at the beginning was to show us Ingrid through Astrid's eyes, and while she does a decent job of alluding to some of the disillusionment that begins to blossom when we hit pre-adolescence, she never lays a real foundation for understanding or feeling of Astrid's desperate, almost hysterical attachment to her mother -- Astrid worships her mother's physicality (enormously sensual), her appreciation of aesthetics (somewhat Cali and cliche) and her poetry (just bad, actually).

After the murder, trial and subsequent imprisonment, Astrid is carted off to -- wait for it -- foster care! As the reader of any late 20th century novel knows well, this bodes the beginning of the "real" story. Because foster parents are all just terrible, messed-up people, either in it for the money or to fulfill some other need. Astrid trails destruction and debris through three or four various foster homes, developing complicated and doomed relationships along the way that only serve to reaffirm her abandonment complex. The only sympathetic person of color in the whole story -- a high-priced call girl named Olivia Johnstone who lives an impossibly rich life laced with jazz, jewelery and jet-setting -- establishes one of Astrid's oft-returned-to realities: "It's a man's world". And yet, Fitch riddles the female characters with so many intensely tragic flaws that halfway through the book one can't help but wonder if she's implying that women are too fucked up to make it a woman's world themselves. Each of the female role-models Astrid finds is almost a caricature of some fatal flaw: gluttony, hypocrisy, despair, lust, while the men remain either sensitive and helpless, or are acquitted of their manly appetites simply because they serve as a backdrop to the relationship between Astrid and the female...but if it's a man's world, and women act the way they do because of men, then why is it okay for the men remain unexamined?

Astrid learns the ropes, as the reader might expect, and in the end bargains with her mother to exchange her tweaked testimony (and potentially her mother's freedom) for tidbits about the past. By this time, so much has happened and Astrid has made so many streetwise decisions that it's difficult to see how the plumbing of the depths of her past (especially the whole thing about Annie...like, who cares? Whether Ingrid was there or not, Astrid was emotionally abandoned the whole time) will really resolve any of her conflict. The final result is simply that Astrid should probably see a therapist or five.

Final Pet Peeve: what's all this about California being a palpable presence in the novel? I won't deny that it was, but I've grown more and more conscious of the fact that there are two separate Californias and I have a hard time with LA authors who behave as though the only California is the California south of San Francisco. It just seems very short-sighted to me. ...less

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Meagan rated it:

01/24/08

My main reason for reading and enjoying this book was the writing. It's an important book to me because I read it at that horrible time in puberty when it seems as if you have the worst life in the world, and so of course I identified with the book.

It's definitely not for everyone. I didn't know it was an Oprah selection for the longest time because I found a copy in the basement that had belonged to my mother, bought when it was first published (the copy that I foolishly loaned to a bitchy ...more My main reason for reading and enjoying this book was the writing. It's an important book to me because I read it at that horrible time in puberty when it seems as if you have the worst life in the world, and so of course I identified with the book.

It's definitely not for everyone. I didn't know it was an Oprah selection for the longest time because I found a copy in the basement that had belonged to my mother, bought when it was first published (the copy that I foolishly loaned to a bitchy friend and never got back, goddamnit). I latched onto this novel because I was looking for something like this; it appealed to both my teen angst and to my literary taste that was beginning to develop. Now, I'm able to go back and float away on this book and capture that same feeling of preciousness and protection that was so dear to me in a time when I was not only dealing with all the crap that comes along with being fifteen years old, but a decent helping of some other issues that I shouldn't have had to deal with. Not nearly anything as drastic as Astrid's problems, certainly, but it was enough to trip me up constantly.

Another reason I have such attachment to this book is because of my mother. Both Ingrid and Astrid remind me of my mom in so many ways that it becomes frightening at times. The very first scene, for instance, where Astrid and Ingrid sit on the roof of their apartment building and look at the moon and talk in riddles...I've done exactly that with my mom, okay? She's certainly not a normal mother, by any means, and she's always had this sort of half-manic, intoxicating air about her, and when I was little she used to do stuff like that with me, for real. She'd wake me in the middle of the night to tell me about a ghost she'd just seen, or drive me halfway across the state to go to a poetry reading so she could make fun of some specific author. And she talked like Astrid and Ingrid. In circles, all breathy and lyrical.

Having a mother like that was a rollercoaster ride, and...I identified with Astrid so much. It made me feel special and privileged when I was young, then later on as I grew older, resentful and cynical and...basically everything that Astrid feels. Then eventually, when Astrid sort of...comes to terms with her mother at the end of the book - or more or less realizes that no matter how she denies it, Ingrid is a part of her blood - it makes me cry. I've been through so much with my own mother, and sometimes when I read this book, I want to give up completely, then the next time I read it I want to fight like hell.

Obviously, it's intensely personal for me. But again, not for everyone. But it resonated so deeply for me at such a crappy time in my life that I don't think I can read it without being affected....less

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Chai rated it:

01/17/08

bookshelves: i-own

Read in January, 2008

At first I balked at reading a book with the stamp of Oprah's appoval on the cover, and a book whose protagonist's name was Astrid. But I fell right into it. The entire book rattled my five senses, I felt that I was always touching, feeling, eating, smelling the scenes. I fell in love with each character, I found them to be entirely dimensional - real, tarnished, they stank, they vibrated and enveloped.

Some say that the prose is overcooked, overdone, ridiculous - but I was really enthralled...more At first I balked at reading a book with the stamp of Oprah's appoval on the cover, and a book whose protagonist's name was Astrid. But I fell right into it. The entire book rattled my five senses, I felt that I was always touching, feeling, eating, smelling the scenes. I fell in love with each character, I found them to be entirely dimensional - real, tarnished, they stank, they vibrated and enveloped.

Some say that the prose is overcooked, overdone, ridiculous - but I was really enthralled to read a book different from the norm for once. I adore books that wrap themselves up in such beautiful language. Not every book that I read, but it's nice to stumble across one like this on occasion.

Sure, the book was harrowing. The characters, rotten and flawed with real-life personalities, terrible things happened to this girl - but I still found it quite real and empowering. Astrid may not have come out a shining tower of lessons-learned, but most of the time it's just the way it goes. We just put our head down and battle on through. Astrid was hardened by the end of it and that's the result I expected. Her intelligence and the fact that she never gave in, gave up - that's what drew me to her.

I loved the story, A's journey from foster home to foster home was fascinating - and a great excuse for Fitch to describe different people, houses, situations with her colour-saturated prose. I don't think I would have minded the novel continuing on, double it's actual length. Though, I was satisfied upon it's completion, I liked the conclusion, real and gritty, not picture perfect, very much like how it really is.

I struggled a little with how many co-dependent women there are in the novel, but disregarded it with the knowledge that unfortunately, there are a lot of women like this out there. It would have been good to have seen a few more stronger, dependent women characters - other than the neurotic Ingrid, who unfavourably still lost her shit over a man.

I'm glad I read 'Paint It Black' first because I know I would have finished devouring 'White Oleander', only to rush out and buy 'Paint It Black', only to be sorely disappointed. 'White Oleander is, without a doubt, the superior novel. I'm also looking forward to reading further works by Fitch....less

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Savy rated it:

01/31/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: Young Adults, Adults

White Oleander
By: Janet Fitch
Genre: Realistic Fiction
The author starts off strong and describes the situation and the characters. The main characters are Astrid and her mother Ingrid. The author tells about thier background and how they moved around a lot. Astrid and her mother never stayed in one place for too long. Astrid's mother, Ingrid, always found some flaw in the town or city that they were currently living i...more White Oleander
By: Janet Fitch
Genre: Realistic Fiction
The author starts off strong and describes the situation and the characters. The main characters are Astrid and her mother Ingrid. The author tells about thier background and how they moved around a lot. Astrid and her mother never stayed in one place for too long. Astrid's mother, Ingrid, always found some flaw in the town or city that they were currently living in. And, in one certain city, Ingrid meets Barry. Barry swooned for Ingrid, but she paid the least bit of attention to him. They went on a few dates and after awhile, Ingrid seemed to like him. But, as soon as the relationship had started, it ended. Barry had been cheating on Ingrid. In turn, Ingrid sabatoged Barry and later ended up murdering him.
So, because of Ingrid's crime, she was hauled off to jail, where she would be spending the next ten years off her life. As for Astrid, she was placed in many different foster homes, while her mother was in jail. Astrid's first home was with Starr, a jealous woman, who shot Astrid in the leg with a pistol. Then, it was Marvel, who thought that Astrid was a built-in babysitter. After that, Amelia, a rich home-owner, who starved the girls. Followed by Clarie, the gorgeous actress, and the MacLaren Children's center. After a few nights there, Astrid continued onto Rena Grushenka. There at Rena's was where Astrid remained for the rest of her high school career. Astrid had been juggled through lots of foster homes, and she learned something from each and everyone.But, most of all she had discovered herself.
This book was absolutely unforgettable and it really was brilliant and powerful. I think anyone that enjoys realistic fiction should read this book.
And, if I could change anything about this book, I would make it go on forever. When I was reading it, I didn't want it to end. It was engrossing, the author should have just kept going with a series or something! Oh well,this book is still the best I have ever read.
...less

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Anshul rated it:

05/31/08

Read in May, 2008

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

Simply Superb!...One of the few books who could make me think so much...it is a must read for all those who believe that (sadness and not happiness) adds dimensions to personality of a human being...

Astrid (narrator of story) amidst the rigmarole of life is left alone...Ingrid, her mother, is too busy in her life - fighting the demons of her life....never giving Astrid the due affection but leaving her to get mature when she should be playing with Barbie! Ingrid goes to jail coz of killing o...more Simply Superb!...One of the few books who could make me think so much...it is a must read for all those who believe that (sadness and not happiness) adds dimensions to personality of a human being...

Astrid (narrator of story) amidst the rigmarole of life is left alone...Ingrid, her mother, is too busy in her life - fighting the demons of her life....never giving Astrid the due affection but leaving her to get mature when she should be playing with Barbie! Ingrid goes to jail coz of killing one such lover and goes to jail leaving Astrid to go to foster homes.

It is then that Astrid learns to live - from the age of 12 to 20 in the book - from all the crests and troughs of life...seeing that she has to be alone...learning that loneliness is not just an emotion but way of life...

Since Astrid was always awed by her mother...loved her too much and that is why she hated her as well too much ...(because the fact is hatred is mirror image of love and you hate those people more whom you have loved at one point of time)

'Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. And intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.' ...more quotes from the book here

Astrid seemed to be an intrepid adventurer throughout the novel ...scared like hell and yet going on...losing the ones whom she loves...learning that no one will be there when she would need...

I loved the end where Astrid outgrows her mother (but not the emotion toward her) by staying with Paul...and deciding to continue living a tough life with him...she won me over completely...coz that is life...not to wish comfort but to embrace the defeats and sadness ...
...less

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Katie rated it:

03/11/08

bookshelves: yummy

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Katie by: Dani Stein
recommends it for: Anyone who's been languishing in Terry Pratchett and Dan Brown and other merely entertaining fiction

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

"I would always know what time it was in California."

I wonder, did she despise that final sentence? Did it seem stale, vapidly hopeful against her inner passages?:

At Claire's, I'd begun to think of my life as a series of Kandinsky pencil sketches, meaningless by themselves, but arranged together they would begin to form an elegant composition. I even thought I had seen the shape of the future in them. But now I had lost too many pieces. They had returned to a handful of pine needles on a forest floor, unreadable. ...more

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Karschtl rated it:

09/01/07

bookshelves: bc, drama, movie

Read in June, 2005

Astrid lives together with her mother Ingrid, a poetess, in Los Angeles. She never met her father, but needs and wants a male 'person' in her life and is happy when her mother starts a relationship with Barry. Unfortunately this happiness does not last long, after only a short affair Barry leaves Ingrid. Since Ingrid is a very strong woman she is not someone to put up with being dumped. She poisons her ex-lover with the flower White Oleander.

Of course Ingrid gets caught and sentenced to sev...more

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Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 0316285269)

02/16/08

bookshelves: unpretentious-chick-lit

First, a preface: this is the kind of novel that Heartbreakingly Postmodern Critics will turn their noses at since it has Earnest Feelings, Tons of Estrogen, a Plot, and Totally Non-Ironic and Non-Hip Bildungsroman elements. As if to add salt to these wounds, Oleander was chosen for Oprah's Motherfucking Book Club. Lord! I should turn in my Literacy Card now for liking this codswallop!

Thankfully, I don't give a fuck.

Oprah endorsements aside, Fitch's debut novel artfully t...more

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whatthedeuce rated it:

03/19/08

First off, I have to say that the book is far superior to the film though I doubt that's much of a feat, considering how cloying I found the film when I watched it in the theater. Anyway, I found this novel to be quite compelling despite the maddening character of Ingrid Magnussen. I understand that she's an artist and also a cynical and hardened woman, but she comes off to me as being obscenely pretentious. Her language just never rang true to me because I can't imagine any real human being spe...more

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Kathaileen rated it:

11/03/07

bookshelves: novels

Read in July, 2002

I started reading this book and couldn’t put it down (I didn’t get dressed until noon and I finally turned the light off at 2:00a.m. but only because I felt guilty not because I was falling asleep). Every time I thought I would read until the next break, I couldn’t stop because of the way she writes and pulls you back in.
The main character is Astrid, a thirteen-year old girl put into foster care after her mother is sent to prison. It follows her story through 6 foster homes:
-Starr, the...more

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Cindi rated it:

07/12/08

bookshelves: contemporary-fiction, dark, pop-lit

Read in July, 2008

I had a hard time deciding how many stars for this book. I really, really wish we could give half stars because this only deserves 2-1/2 stars and not 3.

An interesting story about a gifted young woman (Astrid) growing up in foster care as her poet mother, in prison for the murder of a lover, manipulates her from afar. Throughout, Astrid is simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by her mother. Ingrid's complete evilness and the diversity of Astrid's foster families is what kept me reading to...more

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Holly rated it:

03/15/08

Read in January, 2003

A tad melodramatic and extreme at times, both in the writing and with the characters, but it sort of works.

The characters are largely supposed to be "artists" and they takes themselves too seriously, which is usually what causes all the drama and horror.

I really liked the first sentence, about the Santa Ana winds. She also really examines people in this book - it's filled with fascinating character sketches of all kinds of different people. Well, all kinds of different peo...more

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Taylor rated it:

(review of isbn 0316284955)

05/28/08

Read in March, 2008

White Oleander, and aptly titled novel, as Ingrid Magnussen used the poisonous flower to kill her estranged boyfriend. In this novel by Janet Fitch, we follow Astrid, Ingrid’s daughter, through her various foster homes, as her mother has been convicted of murder and is serving time in prison.
Astrid overcomes many hardships, and meets new tragedies in each home, such as a vicious dog attack, drugs, starvation, and the suicide of her only beloved foster mother. The first foster home she arriv...more

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Megan rated it:

01/11/08

bookshelves: favorites

Read in January, 2003

recommended to Megan by: Aunt Amy Jane

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

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Nateah rated it:

02/16/08

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 inevi...more

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Generic rated it:

04/21/08