White Oleander

Reader reviewed by Annie

The book White Oleander was very interesting but at times was very hard to
read. The beginning of the book was the most challenging because it didnt get
off to a good start. It was very boring and I had to force myself to keep
reading but after a few chapters the book began to get interesting. After those
first couple of chapters, I found myself never wanting to put the book down.

White
Oleander was the debut book for author Janet Fitch. Janet Fitch was born
November 9, 1955 in Los Angeles,
California. She graduated from Reed College,
in Portland, Oregon,
and from Keele University
in England.
Fitch had wanted to become a historian, but on her twenty-first birthday she
decided to begin writing fictional books. So far she has a total of three
books, and in her spare time, she teaches fiction to students at the University of Southern California.

White
Oleander is a story of a mother-daughter relationship, and the search for
ones identity. It tells the story of
11 year old girl named Astrid Magnussen and her feminist poet mother Ingrid.
When Astrid mother is sent to jail for killing her ex-lover with poisons from
white oleander flowers, Astrid Magnussen now has to find the way to adulthood
through a series of Los Angeles foster families and juvenile homes.

Janet Fitch has a very unique
writing style. She goes into a lot of detail and makes you feel like you are there.  She also entices the readers throughout the
story with her language and twists.

The book White Oleander opened my eyes to what life was like for kids who
are in foster homes. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who enjoys
a good book.

 

Reader reviewed by Nic

Astrid's mother, a cold poet of almost frightening beauty, is arrested for the murder of her ex-boyfriend and Astrid is sent to foster care. Shuffled between foster mothers- including a born-again Christian, a hard-faced racist, a Russian dumpster diver, and a suicidal actress- Astrid endures pain and ugliness with an artist's eye and a hardening heart. With the help of a few unlikely friends, Astrid learns to find beauty in unexpected places and hold it in her heart, and learns to be her own person separate from her mother.


An excellent novel, sad and beautifully written. Don't bother with the movie, this is a story that must be told in Astrid's words.

Reader reviewed by Kelsey

Astrid Magnussen is a 15 year old girl, living in California. Her mother, Ingrid, is a beautiful, free-spirited poet. Their life, though unusual, is satisfying until one day, a man named Barry Kolker (that her mother refers to at first as "The goat man") comes into their lives, and Ingrid falls madly in love with him, only to have her heart broken, and her life ruined. For revenge, Ingrid murders Barry with the deadly poison of her favourite flower: The White Oleander. She is sent to prison for life, and Astrid has to go through foster home after foster home. Throughout nearly a decade she experiences forbidden love, religion, near-death experiences, drugs, starvation, and how it feels to be loved. But throughout these years, she keeps in touch with her mother via letters to prison. And while Ingrid's gift is to give Astrid the power to survive, Astrid's gift is to teach her Mother about love.


This book was incredible. I finished it last weekend. The beginning of the book was a little slow and metaphoric. As soon as Astrid got to her first foster home, though, it picked up. The story was fabulously told. Astrid is a very believable character. Fitch is a great author and I plan to read her next book. Every time Astrid went to her new home it was like another amazing story. This book kept me thinking days after I was finished. I really enjoyed this book and bet others did as well.

Reader reviewed by Sandra F.

I read this book when I was sick and I could not put it down. Astrid Magnussen is a teen whose mother, Ingrid, kills her boyfriend by poison from the white oleander flower. Ingrid goes to prison and Astrid get passed around from one foster home to the next.

Ingrid is sure the mother from hell - everything is about her and she is not the least bit concerned about Astrid.

The part of the book I liked the best was when Astrid lived with Rena and spent her time making art from junk and selling it a flea markets. So much of the book was really bleak - like the descriptions of the homes she lived in surrounded by concrete, garbage and wrecked cars.

A movie was made from the book, but the book was a lot better.

Reader reviewed by NIs

I was introduced to this book by a kind stranger in an airport book store. I was about to leave the country and I wanted to take a captivating book with me on this adventure as well. A woman had suggested this book to me, and I continually thank her to this day for that. I have never read any book such as this, and I further try to compare any other book i read to this, not even coming close. Janet Fitch has a talent for weaving many stories of this young orphan, a nomad moving through house to house, trying to sustain in life and how her mother has affected her physically and psychologically. I absolutely adore this book and I continue to pass this on to all my friends, whom have entitled this book as their favorite as well. It took me 2 years to read this book, and I regret not reading it all at once. However, the process in which it took me to read it, sort of gave me a feeling of growth while reading the book. As if I was experiencing things and comparing my life to Astrids. I suggest everybody to read this magnificant tale that will enchant you again and again by the sophisticated language of this author.

Reader reviewed by JEN<3

I really liked this book. It is very descriptive. If you read this book, watch the movie too because it helps you understand the movie more. I love how descriptive the author made everything. A lot of things go on in this story that can make you laugh, cry, mad, etc. That is why this book is very good.

Reader reviewed by Ktlyn

this book is a great look at the life of astird once her mom kills her boyfriend and is sent to prision, during this time astrid is thrown into a wirl wind of PSHYCO foster homes and deals with being beaten,shot,starveing and alot of other things that normal kids wouldnt go through i love the end you realy shold read it

Reader reviewed by sara

This book was not what i expected.It was good and interesting but it was very odd in a way.I like how the girl over comes everything that she goes thru.HOw she does it and still keeps it as together as she does i don't but i love how she does it.

Reader reviewed by Nicki

White Oleander is about a young girl named Astrid. It's about her different experiences going from foster home to foster home after her mother was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend.

In one of the foster homes Astrid was shot in the hip by her foster mother who suspected her of having an affair with her boyfriend. In another foster home, her foster mother kicks her out after she found out that she befriended a black, posh prostitute that lived down the street. In another of her foster homes, Astrid got really attached to her foster mother. It was the best home she lived in. After her foster mother got to talk to her mother and her mother convinced her that her husband must be cheating since he's gone on business all the time, she killed herself.

After that Astrid is sent to a facility for foster children where girls there beat her up because their boyfriends were looking at her. After that she is sent to live with another foster mother who has them help her make cheap things to sale at flea markets.

After she turned 18, Astrid moved to Russia with her boyfriend who she met in the facility for foster children.

Reader reviewed by Jennifer

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.