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Summary: White Oleander A Novel Of Highest Quality
Review: White Oleander exposes truth about a subject rarely written about, the plight of a little girl in foster care. It shows what these children go through ina smart, sensitive, and painfully truthful manner. Ingrid is a woman who prides herself on being strong and dominant. Manipulative and cold she has never allowed herself to feel any real positive emotion for fear it will make her weak. She teaches her young daughter: "We are the Vikings, we are the ones who sacked Rome", and to "never apologize, never explain". She meets a man and falls in love for the first time. Her lover leaves her and she gets revenge. She poisons him and is sent to prison for life. Meanwhile she leaves behind a young daughter who is not wise to the survival instincts of her mother. White Oleander shows us the hardship this child must go through and how she finds ways to survive. It speaks of the strength of the human spirit. Ingrid must survive prison life and Astrid must endure foster hell. She encounters memorable yet sad characters such as Starr, a bible thumping mama who is all but saintly. She also meets Claire who teaches Astrid how to love and be loved. Rena shows Astrid about the ways of the world. White Oleander is beautifully written and the author displays wisdom far beyond her years. It is a novel of the highest quality and will stay with you long after you've read it.
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Summary: Read no more - BUY
Review: Do not read any more reviews on this book! BUY IT NOW. It was so good you don't want to know anymore about it until you are reading it first hand. A masterful story!
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Summary: True Life
Review: The author, Janet Fitch, was born in Los Angeles and decided to be a writer at the age of 21. She recently reviews books for Speak magazine in San Francisco and teaches fiction writing privately in L.A., where she lives with her husband and daughter. The book is about a girl named Astrid who is a young girl that doesn't have a good family life. She goes in and out of foster homes. The reader can learn about tough times and true life. The reader also learns about important relationships between people. I throughly enjoyed this book. I could not put the book down. The book kept me interested with all of the description. The characters lived a very different life than I do but I was still able to relate to some of her feelings. Janet Fitch did an excellent job describing every character. I could imagine exactly what they looked like and how they acted. I was able to get into the book and get attached to the characters. The book teaches readers about struggles and self discovery. Astrid had to get through her childhood and find herself. She needed to find out who she wanted to be. Overall I loved this book and would recommend it to everyone.
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Summary: Absorbing
Review: It was a little tiring to read--and live!--through Astrid's life in the book. She experienced so many things that most people don't usually go through at her young age. But it sure was an amazing, and well-written, journey. It is not at all difficult to get pulled into the narrative of this teenage heroine. Overall, White Oleander is a very entertaining read and I would've given it five stars. The only thing that felt a little out of balance to me was the ending. Although it is a nice one that helps readers breathe easy after all the events in the book, I felt like all the excitement at the beginning of the book vanished just like that 3/4 of the way, leaving me a little high and dry. But maybe that was the point, to have Astrid settle into a life so unlike what she had at first, that the dissipation of excitement is really just a device to get that point across. I recommend this book for a mix of intellectual and emotional reading.
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Summary: Excellent Writing Style
Review: This was one of those books that as you got closer to the end, you slowed down your reading because you just didn't want it to end. I found this book to be one of the best books I have read in a long time. The book can catch you off guard, as it did me, but this book can take you deep inside your thoughts if you let it, and is very well written.
Astrid is a young girl of twelve, who grows up finding her way to womenhood, but she isn't sure of a Women's role in Life. Seeing the role model's that she is offered, leaves her unsure of how or why, and what is her purpose in all this!
There are several messages that this story address, messages that tend to get overlooked as we go through life, but this author has captured these unforgetable moments and memories that some of have in the back of are minds. If you have every come close to experienceing anything that Astrid in this book as experienced, you will find this book amazing, and for those of you who have been fortunate to escape life's dark side, please open your minds and take a walk with this book, you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: The Beautiful Poison Of A Mother's Love
Review: White Oleander is a book that will tug at your heartstrings, make angry, laugh out loud, and will constantly leave you wondering what will happen next. The white oleander is a beautiful but poisonous flower and is used in this book as a metaphor for motherhood. I highly recommend reading this book because it leaves you thinking even after it is finished. It is a good book for teenagers to read, especially girls, because it deals with many pertinent issues teenagers have to face such as sex, self discovery, the need to fit in, suicide, bulimia, and the relationship between a mother and a daughter.
Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who uses her beauty to manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of mystery. Their world is shattered when Ingrid goes crazy over a lover who rejected her. She kills him and winds up in prison. This book is about Astrid's unforgettable story through a series of foster homes. Each home is in its own universe and teaches her a different lesson. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to find herself in a motherless world.
Janet Fitch, the author, was born in LA and grew up in a family of enthusiastic readers. On her twenty-first birthday, she woke up and decided to write fiction. Since then she has had many jobs, including writing numerous short stories for literary magazines.
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Summary: Worth your time....YOU'LL ENJOY IT!!!
Review: As Astrid moved her way through too many foster home, she discovers herself. She loses a lot of people whom she really loves and that lends itself importantly to her life-long journey of self-discovery. The author, Janet Fitch, was born in Los Angeles to a family of voracious readers. She went to Reed College and decided to become a historian. She knew she wanted to write fiction on the night of her twenty-first birthday in England at Keele University. She is an extremely talented writer. This book is extremely heart-wrenching. You begin to really feel for Astrid, you almost become her in this coming-of-age tale. It's captivating plot of twists and turns leaves you on the edge of your seat, always wanting more. I constantly found myself asking "what could be worse than this?", as she entered yet another new foster home, but Fitch always exceeded the limits with each new place of residence. There was always a new lesson to be learned. It seemed as if Fitch has lived through what Astrid is going through because of the raw detail and intense feelings expressed throughout the book. A truly worthwhile novel.
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Summary: Best written book in a while
Review: This book's writing style is amazing, the vividness of the descriptions and the complexity of the characters makes it one of the best written books I have read in a long while. The subject is sad/tragic, but you almost get lost in the story without realizing the actual impact of the situations being described by the author.
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Summary: White Oleander: A review
Review: White Oleander, by Janet Fitch, is about Astrid Magnussen, the daughter of a bohemian mother jailed for poisoning her ex-boyfriend with the deadly white oleander flower. It follows Astrid's ups and downs in life following as she goes in and out of dysfunctional homes. She is shot three at the mobile home she is placed at first, made nanny and servant at the next, and nearly starved at another. She is made to witness the death of a loved one, and ripped away from every functional and loving relationship she was able to endure during her adolescent years. But through out all of her trials and tribulations, Astrid not only survived, but thrived. I really enjoyed this book because it was a seemingly real account of a girls life. It was honest and very blunt. It was not sugar-coated, and it told a story that could stand as inspiration for anyone who is going through hard times. Just when one thinks that Astrid had gone threw the worst, something even harder happens, but she always seemed to make it threw those things. What made this book easier and more enjoyable to read was Janet Fitch's style of writing. She had a very honest and open style and didn't leave details out. She wrote about subjects that are controversial, and she did it in a very tasteful way. The way she wrote about some things that were controversial opened your eyes to things that you wouldn't normally even think about. Overall, White Oleander was an enjoyable book. It was inspirational, eye opening, and touching. This book is for anybody who needs and uplifting or just wants to read a good book.
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Summary: A Girl's Odyssey
Review: This book spans so much time, area, and feelings. It can be overwhelming, even depressing. It definitely opened my eyes to the world of foster care. The innocents in the book, Davey, all the little children, are bound to be corrupted in this frightening world--sex, drugs, violence, the system in general, uncaring adults. Astrid faces all these things, and she comes through stronger, for sure. She still bears her scars, both physical--stitches from being mauled by dogs, gunshot wounds--and emotional.
One part that really bugged me was Astrid's encounter with Ray. A grown man does not have sex with a fourteen year old girl, period. Even if she talks him into it. Ray himself says it's wrong, but he easily gives in to a traumatized puberty-aged girl who's only just started wearing a bra. I was hoping that Ray would be arrested too, for statutory rape. His irresponsible and selfish actions only made Astrid's life harder in the future.
Ingrid is another mean character--cruel and self-centered. She is so in love with herself that she can't spare any care for anyone else, even her daughter. Even in prison she is manipulative and heartless. Seeing Astrid broken and unhappy, starved or beaten, satisfies her in a perverted way. That's why she resents the one foster mother who truly loves Astrid and wants her to have a better life. I can't believe Ingrid has true remorse by the end of the novel. I can't feel sorry for her at all, only the more sorry for Astrid for having her as a mother. I hope that if I were in Astrid's position I'd be able to tell her off once and for all. She'd certainly be better off without Ingrid in her life.
White Oleander is gripping and terrifying. I had to vent on a few points, but the piece is still remarkable. It certainly will stay in my mind for a while. It's depressing, but leaves a lasting impression.
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