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White Oleander

Janet Fitch (Goodreads Author)

3.97 · Rating details · 314,435 ratings · 7,092 reviews

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey ...more

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Paperback, 446 pages

Published September 1st 2001 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 1999)

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Jan 13, 2008 Faith-Anne rated it really liked it

Shelves: modern-literature, my-favorites

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

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May 05, 2011 Janet rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

Well, what was I supposed to rate it?
I did work awfully hard on W.O.... still like it. Sad to think Oprah's book club is all over, it was quite an experience.

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Mar 18, 2018 Crumb rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was a masterful yarn about a complex relationship between mother and daughter. It was about the loss of self, the journey of finding oneself, and most importantly - the resilience of the human spirit. This wasn't a tale of any ordinary bond between mother and daughter, this was a story of the severe dysfunction that occurs when a mother, Ingrid, is imprisoned for murder and a daughter, Astrid, is passed around like garbage from one foster home to another. This novel explores the intricacies ...more

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Dec 03, 2010 Christina White rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, literary-fiction, 5-star-reads

Dark, depressing, disturbing, and so beautiful! When the author described the August summer heat I felt it, like hot breath on my neck. I fell in love with Ingrid and her beauty and ideas of the world. Then I became Astrid, and I felt how much she loved her and how bad it hurt to also hate her, but hate Ingrid I did! I would walk away from long reading sessions feeling hardened and detached. It's not an easy read, but I find literature that can make me feel so strongly well deserving of praise. ...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Arah-Lynda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: top, i-said, killer-prose

This is Astrids story.

We meet her first when she is twelve and in Ingrids (her mother) care.

Ingrid is a woman of such rare, unearthly beauty as to be most likely found in dreams.

Fitch describes her through Astrids eyes, gradually, poetically, using very sparse language, as the story unfolds, with words that sing, the pages glistening with the image reflected from her eyes.

The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shrivelling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the ...more

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Nov 01, 2015 Maxwell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

I have many thoughts that I'm having trouble putting into words. Before reading the final chapter of the book, I had to put it down, lean my head back against the couch and think about the experience I've had while reading this book. Astrid's journey, her development from girl to woman, is remarkably crafted. Fitch's writing paints the arid desert and mountain brush in such fine detail. Atmospherically, this story was superb. I was totally immersed in the story, in the physical spaces that ...more

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Jan 14, 2008 Matt rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: sad girls

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

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Nov 26, 2007 Jessica rated it liked it

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

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

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 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. ...more

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Mar 22, 2019 Joe Valdez rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-general

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. After reading her scorching short story in Los Angeles Noir, I smoked a cigarette (I don't smoke), napped and reached for a novel by Janet Fitch. Round 2 is White Oleander, which Oprah's Book Club made a sweepstakes winner at the time of its publication in 1999 and for good reason. This is fiction at its most intoxicating, with boozy prose but also beautifully woven narrative, without a single lull in story or a character who fails to make a mark. Its vision and breadth reminded me of W. ...more

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Apr 10, 2018 Luffy rated it liked it · review of another edition

I am appalled by the worldview presented in this book. Yet the circumstances surrounding Ingrid, a poetess who goes to prison for murder are so artificial!

I don't want to squirm when I'm reading, and I read for pleasure. Is there a market for books like this? Of course there is. And I've got nothing against people who like this book. But should they lap it up like it's licorice?

The book is also about foster homes and what can go wrong. I just don't think that the author should be so fake in her ...more

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Feb 21, 2017 Vanessa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: on-my-bookshelf

What exquisite writing, never have I read a book that speaks so beautifully but also describes pain so acutely. Astrid becomes a ward of the state after her mother commits a crime of passion and is imprisoned. Although her mother is behind bars, Astrid cannot shake her mother's deep hold on her. Her mother, beautiful Nordic Ingrid Magnussen. A true seductress a woman who can weave a web of destruction with her beauty, poetry and words, people fall in love with her, men in particular, she is ...more

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Jul 01, 2019 Johann (jobis89) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

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.

Ingrid Magnusson is sent to jail for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, leaving her daughter, Astrid, to enter the foster care system.

White Oleander is pure poetry. The writing is absolutely exquisite - its one of those books where you keep pausing just to inhale really moving and ...more

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Jan 14, 2018 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, favourites, coming-of-age, sex-drugs-rock-and-roll, read-more-than-once, los-angeles, california

White Oleander follows the story of Astrid, a young girl who is shuttled from one foster home to another while her mother serves a life sentence in prison.

I'm reading this for the second time, and it remains one of my favourite books ever. It is as beautiful and dreamy as it is bleak and raw. The Los Angeles setting is gorgeous, blissful, and yet terribly unforgiving. I was so totally immersed in this story from start to finish, and I would think about it longingly when I was off doing other ...more

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Jul 23, 2019 Pedro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

In the early 2000s I was reading lots of books from the public library. I read all kinds of fiction. I read a lot of crap. Books I cant even mention, and so many I cant remember. Ah, but I remembered White Oleander all these years. Fourteen, to be precise. How I thought about this book at the most random and crazy times. How I thought about that beautiful writing through the years. I knew I needed to read it again.

The time has come and gone and Ive read White Oleander again.
I should have known ...more

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Dec 04, 2014 Helene Jeppesen rated it it was amazing

Wow, this is a BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE and an intelligent and heartbreaking, true and honest story.
When I was about 100 pages into the book, I already knew that this was going to be a new favourite of mine. Now that I've finished it, I can honestly say that this is one of the most raw books I've ever read.
What strikes me the most about this story is the impeccable writing style. The main character, Astrid, tells the story in a very impressionistic way and it was beautiful! Janet Fitch has a way ...more

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Jun 10, 2007 Michael rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary_fiction

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.

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Jun 23, 2015 Debbie "DJ" rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, own

This is some of the most beautiful writing I've ever encountered. It reminds me a little bit of Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. It's language is deep and satisfying. The mother daughter relationship told in an almost mythical way. Loved it!

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Jan 11, 2008 Megan rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Megan by: Aunt Amy Jane

Shelves: favorites

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 with my ...more

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Mar 24, 2017 Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids, reviewed, goodreads-author, novel, 1-also-at-librarything, mental-illness, readbooks-female-author-or-illust, z2017, zz-5star

It took me forever to sit down and write this review. I never wait this long after finishing a book to post some sort of review. Ive just given up and realized its impossible for me to do justice to the book. Its a full 5 star rating from me, though not (yet?) on my favorites shelf, maybe because the ending seemed a bit truncated/rushed to me; I wanted to know a bit more.

This one wrecked me, it wiped me out, it was gut wrenching. I loved it. Its my kind of book. Thanks to GR friend Caroline for It took me forever to sit down and write this review. I never wait this long after finishing a book to post some sort of review. I’ve just given up and realized it’s impossible for me to do justice to the book. It’s a full 5 star rating from me, though not (yet?) on my favorites shelf, maybe because the ending seemed a bit truncated/rushed to me; I wanted to know a bit more.

This one wrecked me, it wiped me out, it was gut wrenching. I loved it. It’s my kind of book. Thanks to GR friend Caroline for periodically recommending that I read it. I’m glad that it’s finally off my too long to-read shelf and I’m glad I read it now, even though I had to temporarily put aside a few books I have commitments to read soon, some too soon to accomplish in time. It’s the second book I’ve read in 2017 that has helped me get out of my readers’ slump. I hope the next books I read are anywhere as close to engaging. It was a page-turner for me. The only parts I sometimes found dull were Ingrid’s letters to Astrid, but because of why I thought that was also smart writing.

The writing is gorgeous. I mostly appreciate the many complicated, realistic, interesting, and memorable characters, especially Astrid. Some of the circumstances seemed almost extreme (though still believable) but nothing about the characters rang false to me.

I loved reading how Astrid adapted to her many different circumstances. I think she’s a brilliantly drawn character. I worried needlessly that I wouldn’t be as interested in her as she ages, 12 to almost 18 and then beyond a bit to an unknown age but I think not much older, but it actually got harder and harder to put down the book the farther in I read. Each move turned into a whole other world. I rooted for and worried about Astrid all the way through.

The book is deeply melancholy. I found myself getting more and more depressed as Astrid goes through some of her placements. The main character has a highly unconventional upbringing even until age 12 and then experiences chaos and disruption from ages 12-18. Every placement I found interesting, only one would I consider more than barely tolerable. I was impressed and saddened by how she adapted to each place/group of people. I appreciated how she could often be so tender and generous with some of the other people she lived with in almost all her foster homes. Even for a foster child, some of the placements were notable for being unusual.

This is a great Los Angeles story. I have a San Francisco shelf and a NYC shelf. If I had a Los Angeles shelf, this book would go on it. I loved taking a tour through L.A. and the surrounding areas, including the rural areas.

At the end of my edition there is an interview with the author (with a link to the full interview which I’ve yet to read) and a list of discussion questions.

This would be a great book club book because there is a lot to think about and discuss.

Highly recommended for readers who like beautifully crafted novels, those interested in foster children, those who enjoy atypical coming of age stories, readers who like reading about dysfunctional families and family relationships, those who appreciate how art can be healing, and people who are familiar with L.A. and southern California.

Two of the quotes that I loved:

“The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.”

“How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.” ...more

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Aug 27, 2009 Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2010, f-literary

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 (since I'm pathetic ...more

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Jul 11, 2018 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20-books-of-summer-2018

Man, that Oprah knows how to pick em! This was a terrific read; Im not sure why Id never gotten to it before. I read huge chunks during my travel to the States and then slowed down quite a bit, which was a shame because it meant I felt less connected to Astrids later struggles in the foster care system. Its an atmospheric novel full of oppressive Los Angeles heat and a classic noir flavor that shades into gritty realism as it goes on, taking us from when Astrid is 12 to when shes a young woman Man, that Oprah knows how to pick ’em! This was a terrific read; I’m not sure why I’d never gotten to it before. I read huge chunks during my travel to the States and then slowed down quite a bit, which was a shame because it meant I felt less connected to Astrid’s later struggles in the foster care system. It’s an atmospheric novel full of oppressive Los Angeles heat and a classic noir flavor that shades into gritty realism as it goes on, taking us from when Astrid is 12 to when she’s a young woman out in the world on her own.

Astrid’s mother Ingrid, an elitist poet, becomes obsessed with a lover who spurned her and goes to jail for his murder. Bouncing between foster homes and children’s institutions, Astrid is plunged into a world of sex, drugs, violence and short-lived piety. “Like a limpet I attached to anything, anyone who showed me the least attention,” she writes. Her role models change over the years, but always in the background is the icy influence of her mother, through letters and visits. Fitch’s writing is sumptuous, as in a house “the color of a tropical lagoon on a postcard thirty years out of date, a Gauguin syphilitic nightmare.” I might have liked a tiny bit more of Ingrid in the book, but I can still recommend this one wholeheartedly as summer reading.

Favorite lines:

The knock-out opening two lines: “The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blossoms, their dagger green leaves.”

“I couldn’t imagine my mother in prison. She didn’t smoke or chew on toothpicks. She didn’t say ‘bitch’ or ‘fuck.’ She spoke four languages, quoted T. S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas, drank Lapsang souchong out of a porcelain cup. She had never been inside a McDonald’s. She had lived in Paris and Amsterdam. Freiburg and Martinique. How could she be in prison?”

“My scars were my face, my past was my life.”

“It was my legacy, wasn’t it, to shed lives like snakeskin, a new truth for each new page, a moral amnesiac?” ...more

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Apr 03, 2017 Skye rated it it was amazing

Exquisite, provocative, melodious novel spun by author Janet Fitch, artistic with the English language. White Oleander is an epoch/pastoral poem in the guise of a novel, a Romantic's dream, a Metaphysical masterpiece and yet underneath the beauty of language lies a gritty, edgy story of pain, lost hope, longing, desire and need; it is a journey of redemption often meeting with despair, broken glass and scars; it is a voyage of self-discovery and quintessential decisions that leave the reader ...more

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Jul 09, 2008 Kelly rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: enemies

Recommended to Kelly by: Oprah

Shelves: smarty-pants, audiobook

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.

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Mar 08, 2012 Britany rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-to-film, bookriot, oprah-picks

White Oleander packs a powerful punch to your emotional psyche. Almost as soon as I started this book, I was swept away by the writing. Astrid Magnussan- just a beautiful wisp of a newly minted teenager watches as her mom spirals downward and loses control, ending up in prison. Astrid finds herself in Foster care and the story takes us on the path that soon defines Astrid's life. Home after home, fancy prostitues, starvation, to suicidal thoughts. This book does not shy away from the dark and ...more

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Jul 10, 2008 Cat rated it it was ok

Shelves: escapism, meh

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 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. ...more

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Feb 13, 2008 Ananda rated it it was amazing

I can't forget her story. It's like an 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 a 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 tainted to drink....
I taste the saltiness of her tears as they stream down her face, burning, leaving behind scars of inevitable pain. I feel ...more

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Aug 18, 2007 Niya rated it it was amazing

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.

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Jun 30, 2016 Rebecca McNutt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women-s, fiction, family

Gripping from the beginning to the end, White Oleander is destined to become a classic and there are definitely none like it out there. :)

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Sep 02, 2007 Madeline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites

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 ...more

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Jun 15, 2007 Chloe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, a_family_affair, california

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/ice queen mother, ...more

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About Janet Fitch

Janet Fitch

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Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers. As an undergraduate at Reed College, Fitch had decided to become an historian, attracted to its powerful narratives, the scope of events, the colossal personalities, and the potency and breadth of its themes. But when she won a student exchange to Keele University in England, where her ...more

Books by Janet Fitch

The Revolution of Marina M. (The Revolution of Marina M. #1)

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The author of White Oleander takes readers inside the St. Petersburg bourgeoisie in The Revolution of Marina M . Fitch tells us about her lo...

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Quotes from White Oleander

“ 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. An 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.” — 2692 likes

“Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.” — 800 likes

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