Customer Reviews

White Oleander: A Novel

5 star:		(519)
4 star:		(156)
3 star:		(85)
2 star:		(50)
1 star:		(61)

 

 

This is yet another thrift shop book that cost less than a dollar but unlike my previous purchase of Philip Roth's "The Human Stain," White Orleander is a book of high literary merit that you want to read over and over again because it is so addictive, like the scent of the White Orleander, and it's vicious but beauteous scent.

White Orleander is about Mothers and daughters and the complex relationships we sometimes have with those we love but don't always like.

It's a book about life, death, survival and the redemption of the soul.

Astrid is the teenage daughter of Ingrid now in prison after murdering an ex-lover and Astrid finds herself at the Mercy of the Los Angeles foster care system that is both brutal and tender.

From her first teenage love affair with one of her foster mother's boyfriend's to her life in Berlin as a cynical but gifted young Artist we have driven through a life filled with tears, laughter, and the uncompromising brutality of the human experience.

Astrid is above all a survivor and she takes from her foster life experience a new way of thinking, of understanding those around her, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

For me the best part of the book was Astrid's artistry of life, along with her acute understanding of mother's selfish whims and desire to be "beautiful and wanted" by the world for her talents as a poet, even though she is languishing in jail.

But Astrid is everything her mother is not, and her ability to carry her life with her in "museums," customised suitcases representing all those people that have influenced her life is wonderful, and you can feel the presence of Star, the God loving, drug taking foster mother, who shoots Astrid for seducing her man, the cowardly and weak Ray and other characters such as the racist Marvel and Olivia a woman for who men are no mystery, the suicidal Claire most beloved to Astrid, the greedy voracious Amelia Ramos, Yvonne a teenage mother with more dreams than sense, the streetwise Rena and Paul, Astrid's young lover in Berlin, like her a former foster child and writer.

And threading its way through the novel always is the power of Ingrid, struggling to keep control of her daughter who is surviving the world without her.

This is not an easy book to read, there is brutality, tenderness, betrayal, and deception in every page but you are compelled to read on and though the ending is far from satisfying it is what you expect.

Read White Orleander, and pray that no one ever makes a suitcase for you that represents your life because if they do you might not like what you see...

White Oleander is like the poetry of Ingrid Magnussen: hauntingly beautiful and razor's-edge sharp. Like the book's namesake, White Oleander is seductive and poisonous. And it's a winner of a book. Mostly, though, it's about change.

Astrid begins the book as nothing but a reflection of who her mother projects her to be. Quiet, "flying under the radar", she is like the "clay that is happy in a good potter's hands", content to be molded and shaped every which way. It is only when she is no longer under her mother's wing - and spell - that she starts to grow up and become a real person of her own. The book is about Astrid's search for identity, and the people along the way who help her or hurt her or ultimately teach her lessons - usually the hard way - about life.

Sure, the abuse in the various foster homes borders on cliché... but it never quite gets there, because Janet Fitch has a gift for nuance. All her substitute mothers - Starr, Marvel, Amelia, Claire, Rena - would have been two-dimesional cardboard cutouts if written by some other author. But Fitch fleshes them out, makes them real.

In fact, the only static character in the book is Ingrid, and that is because she is intentionally so: a symbol more than a person. Astrid, in contrast to her mother, is dynamic, and this is why Ingrid seems to change throughout the book. She hasn't changed, but the way Astrid sees her has. At first, she is larger-than-life, hauntingly seductive, beautiful and mysterious. Gradually, as Astrid matures and begins to break away, Ingrid is revealed as selfish, manipulative, sociopathic and ultimately, small and insignificant. Astrid survives her hardships and ultimately emerges stronger for them, ready to shake off her mother's influence and live life on her own terms.

White Oleander is a book I find myself reading again and again. Unfortunaetely, the film adaptation was terrible, but the book itself is still highly worthwhile. Recommended.

Excellent, descriptive and captivating writing about the life of a (disadvantaged) girl in California; disturbing regarding the foster home issues, violence, drugs. Yet also encouraging because of the few good hearted people, hope, love.

I picked up WHITE OLEANDER after being entralled with the movie. I loved the movie--the atmosphere, the music and the acting. But the book? The book was even better.

I loved the unique realationship of Astrid and Ingrid and her influence on Astrid as she goes from foster home to foster home to 'the floor you can't fall below'.

This book did not need rape, drug addiction or prostitution to become a bestseller as none of those three things are in WHITE OLEANDER.

This book was incredibly well-written and poetic. And I grew to admire Astrid because the change in her life made her think as to who she is as a person, independant from her mother.

Each foster home and place Astrid stayed at was different and never EVER boring. I also loved how each place that Astrid went to showed a different side of L.A. that I had never known existed and I think Fitch captured that beautifully.

The whole book is amazing and strong in every aspect.

Reviewed by Callie at Handle Like Hendrix

WHITE OLEANDER is one heck of a read. It's a very lyrical novel about a young girl whose brilliant but mentally ill mother murders an ex-boyfriend and winds up in prison for life. I was reminded at time of the novel BARK OF THE DOGWOOD with its themes of family dysfunction and parents who reek emotional destruction on their children. In OLEADNER The girl is bounced around from horrible foster family to horrible foster family while trying to figure out who she is, who her mother is, and who they are to become. Some of the writing seemed heavy-handed to me, and some of the plot seemed unnecessarily manipulative. However, I couldn't put this book down -- the prose is so good that breaking it up by putting it down was almost impossible. I wanted to keep the flow going. Very depressing look at foster care, but an uplifting look at the strength young women in difficult situations can pull up from within themselves.

Seldom has a debut novel had so much going for it - White Oleander became a bestseller, was made into a major motion picture starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Renee Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn, was an Oprah pick and is now in audio book release read by none other than Oprah Winfrey.

Who would not recognize the voice? Low, husky, appealing. She's already shown her acting chops in the film The Color Purple, so it's little wonder that she delivers a terrific voice narration. She reads with telling inflection and feeling.

White Oleander is the story of Astrid, the daughter of a single mom, Ingrid, a mother so gorgeous that she thinks her beauty is a ticket to most anywhere or anything. That ticket is torn in half when Ingrid learns her lover has been unfaithful and she kills him. She's sentenced to life imprisonment, leaving Astrid to find her own way in the world through a string of foster homes.

Each house, Astrid learns, is very different; each foster parent unlike another. However, she proves to be resilient, as she copes, struggles and learns. Her saving grace may be her gift as an artist.

A high five for White Oleander - listen and enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

Loved this book. Hated the movie. I'm so glad I read the book first because if I had of watched the movie first I never would have even picked up the book.

White Oleander is a modern classic that I was able to really connect with. I couldn't put this book down and have not been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it. I highly recommend it for a beach read.

WHITE OLEANDER is the first and only book I have read from Oprah's celebrated book club.

While many have panned the book, I found a strange sort of desolate beauty and comfort in it. This is exactly what a good book should do. Draw you into it's story, weave you into the plot, and turn you out on the other end, questioning that which motivates you and makes you exist.

For me, the combination of Astrid (the main character), her tormented life, and the other-worldly beauty of Janet Fitch's writing style left me wanting more. More White Oleander and more out of life.

Books such as this draw the introspective spirit out of us and make us take long, hard looks at our lives. Astrid's misfortunes made me appreciate my health and success even more. Fitch's detailed and almost surreal prose made me stop and smell the roses.

This story is a painful one about the horrible circumstances of a child's life. Yes, it is extremely graphic in areas, and includes many scenarios which many of us would rather not read. That is where it's controversy lies.

But with these things aside, it is an excellent story. One in which you can't seem to put the book down, reading long into all hours of the night. Wishing that Astrid would find good fortune, but knowing that she will only find heartache.

My copy of White Oleander is beginning to show wear from the numerous friends I have lent it to. Some have liked it more than others. One couldn't read it at all.

Regardless, I give Janet Fitch and WHITE OLEANDER 5 stars, and congratulate Fitch on an excellent debut novel. Thanks also to the reviewer who recommended THE LOSERS' CLUB (Complete Restored Ed) by Richard Perez, another great book, which is also about a (poet) mother/child relationship of sorts. Another engaging, oddly compelling read that I can't stop thinking about.

I thought that White Oleander was a brilliant book (as was the film). The characters are unique and interesting, and the protaganist and narrator, Astrid, is thoughtful and compelling. Janet Fitch is a gifted writer.

The book and film seem to have been overlooked a bit by the general public but I think that both are worthy of 5/5 stars.