Rating: 
Summary: If you appreciate good writing, READ THIS!
Review: The people griping about this book can just blow it out their ears. This book is not Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or Robin Cook fluff, it is beautifully written. If you're capable of deep thought and introspection, you'll enjoy this book if you just shut up and read the book on its own terms. Just because you personally don't like a character doesn't make the book worthless, there is a tremendous amount of food for thought provided by this book.The ending that people complain about caught me off guard and I was disappointed because I didn't want the book to end. I saw a lot of hope in the ending of the book and closed it knowing Astrid would be okay. But above all else, I cannot emphasize enough how well written this book is. Janet Fitch communicates a tremendous amount of detail using very few words. When reading "White Oleander", I often stopped to reread sentences, marveling over how they were written. I reread entire paragraphs because I wanted to, not because I'd spaced out. If you expect your books to be like a typical Hollywood action movie, "White Oleander" is not for you. If you appreciate something that's well written, you've got to read this book. I rarely gush over a book I've read and it's high praise for Janet Fitch that I'm recommending this so emphatically.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening Novel
Review: This book was amazing. The idea was so simple and yet the book was so intricate. Astrids life going from foster home to foster home was devastating and Janet Fitch captured her frame of mind during all of it. I felt as though I was with Astrid from the time she lived in the Trailor to her home in Hollywood. Astrid's relationship with her mother was very interesting. It went from the begining of the novel when she loved her mother and admired her to the end where she almost truley hated her. This work of literature was inspiring and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Holy mackerel! This Fitch can write!
Review: Oh my, my, my can this author ever make the words flow like thick, luscious cream. Fitch's command of poetic description is downright breathtaking at times in White Oleander. I applaud her skill and mastery over language. As far as the story itself this is a very engaging tale. Very! However, I must say it suffers a bit from over-the-top melodrama. If ever the adages "bad things happen to good people" and "if anything can go wrong, it will" fit it's here with White Oleander's main character... the young, beautiful, abandoned, confused, talented, scarred, remarkably buoyant Astrid. I admit to thoroughly enjoying this book from cover to cover, but I also confess that I feel it suffers a bit from Oprahitis... i.e. a load of gratuitous heartache and tears that are somewhat hard to buy as a reflection of real life events happening to a single soul! That said, don't let me deter anyone from reading this publication of magical words. Even I found this story a bit unbelievable at times Fitch's words are nothing short of stunning. I can hardly wait to see what Janet Fitch has in store for us as her skills at spinning yarns mature.
Rating:
Summary: A Emotional, and Above All, Well-Crafted Novel
Review: The author must have enjoyed writing this book as much as I enjoyed reading it - it showed. It takes the top honor of the favorite book I have read this year, and I read a great many books. Certainly the best of the Oprah books, or at least a tie with The Book of Ruth. A masterpiece, and a writer I'd like to see more of.
Rating:
Summary: Superb storytelling!
Review: "White Oleander", the first novel of author Janet Fitch, is as superb a story as one can find on any bestseller list. With rich prose and imaginative imagery, it blooms like a garden gone wild. The oleander, a highly poisonous evergreen shrub, is an apt symbol to use when telling the story of Astrid Magnussen, a young woman torn away from her roots when her mother, Ingrid, poisons and kills a would-be boyfriend who shuns her. Becoming obsessive, Ingrid stalks the man and in her final passionate plea for attention, concocts a murderous potion in which the white oleander flower is used. Her subsequent sentence to prison sets young Astrid adrift, floating like a spirit through one foster home after another, learning the poisonous ways of the world in her own way. She is abused physically, pschologically, and emotionally at every step, and takes on a thorny demeanor in order to keep the world at bay. Told with incredible voice, Fitch portrays the day to day struggles a young woman on her own faces in this great land of ours, seeming to attract only those who would cause her harm. Through this Job's test of trial and tribulation, Astrid learns to stand up for herself and to pluck the flower of her life while its still in bloom. She blames her mother for everything that has happened to her, but learns that each of us make our own decisions in life, and must live with the consequences. Both sad and uplifting, "White Oleander" is beautifully written, evocative of a female "Catcher In The Rye". Heartily recommended! The
Rating:
Summary: A book you can not put down!
Review: I read a lot. Therefore, it is an exciting day to come across a book that I can not put down. White Oleander is a tale that will keep you yearning for more even after you are done with it.
Rating:
Summary: Totally Engrossing, Moving and Poetic
Review: In all my years and all the books I've read I've never been able to rattle off the name of a favorite. Now I can. White Oleander thouroughly sucked me in from the first page. Janet Fitch's poetic and lyrical style captivated me. Astrid's journey was a moving tale filled with characters that came alive and now live inside me. It's a story that reads like it was aching to be told. I was moved to tears. I know I will read it again and the beautifully strung together words will paint even more pictures in my head and heart. Don't hesitate. Read this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Catchy
Review: After such a skillful crafting of the icy Ingrid (how I enjoyed seeing one of these aesthetic creatures who looks down on all the ordinary people of the world get her due)it a was a real disappointment to see Astrid devolve into such a cliche. The misunderstood, pierced, tattooed artist-punk living in her unheated Berlin flat toting her suitcase-art. There's no denying that she thought herself a pretty hip and cool victim and what luck that hip and cool victims are in style.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't really feel sympathy for the "heroine".
Review: While the plot of this book is interesting, I could not feel any sympathy for Astrid. Well, I did at first but not after she "seduces" the boyfriend of her first foster mother and just kept on doing it, even while knowing the damage she is doing to her foster family. And her reason for doing so is more whiny than tragic. She is her mother's daughter, alright. The characters in this book are more ideal than real, like in those paperback romance novels. Astrid is like any romance novel heroine, beautiful but tragic, and with attractiveness of a siren. The other characters have even less of humanity. Ray the sad Humbert, Ingrid the cold serpent of a mother, Claire the sad flower of a wife, and so on. None of the characters made me feel any kind of "real" conflicts. I couldn't help the feeling that the author made the foster mother characters so crass and the male characters so weak just to give validation to the character of Astrid even when Astrid deserved some of the treatment she received. Janet Fitch's writing style is fluid and beautiful but her story lacks real emotions. This is a book with more art than matter, more intellect than intelligence. If you like this type of book, read it.
Rating:
Summary: mesmerized, enlightened, intouch
Review: if you are living on the surface (happymom) or whatever her name is, this book is not for you. Janet Fitch is brilliant...what she has done with this book, the character Astrid, and her mother with her conflicting displays of struggle, the struggle of spirituality vs. survival, white vs. color, the power of beauty vs. the sacrifices it involves, this list could go on forever, but ultimately, while being portrayed in a mother vs. daughter scenario, the question embodying the text, oh that beautiful, colorful, metaphor-filled text, is this...what is our capacaties as human beings and at what point in our lives do we let go or not and where do we go from there? If you are a thinker you will like this work, but if not stay away from this book or I will become angry when I read your review as you insult Janet Fitch with your superficial complaints involving the book, the offenses her words gave you because she dealt with difficult at times evil subject matter...for you people I say look further, this book is so much more than that.And i want to thank Ms. Fitch for her words, her thoughts, and her questions, for I was beginning to lose hope and she helped me bring it back. This book is pure genius!
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