One of the best books I've ever read!

books:


	• White Oleander Janet Fitch Back Bay Books, 2000 - 446 pages average customer review:based on 1012 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Fantastic!

A moving story about a daughter thrust into "the world" as her mother is thrust into prison. A story about finding yourself, finding help, finding your way, and finding your will.

Well thought out character scenarios and character personalities. Incredibly well written. Highly intelligent narration by Astrid. Although naive in some instances, she's incredibly intelligent for her age and situation.

Makes you wonder about your own situation, who shaped you 'whether loving or cruel' (as quoted in the book) and how one incident can change your life forever.

I re-read it at least twice a year. I love revisiting the characters, looking at the reading list Ingrid gives to Astrid, trying to see the importance of each book. She's a facinating character to explore and try to get inside. Although I see the story from Astrid's point of view (the daughter), I relate to her more. But Ingrid has an edge that is intriguing.

Interesting story, intriging characters, a must read if you haven't yet.

for more information click here

One of the best books I've ever read!

I loved this book. I've read it at least four times already and love it more every time I read it. It's hard to imgaine having a mother like Ingrid but even harder to imagine the life Astrid had once she was gone. I was glued to every page from beginning to end. Can't wait to see what Janet Fitch comes up with next.

for more information click here

Chilling

Honestly - I didn't want to read this book. I had heard about the subject matter and wanted to shield myslef from it. But it kept beckoning me. I'm glad I read it. It's chilling, and made me think, which very few contemporary books do anymore.

So beautifully written...

I've read this book several times. I read it at least once a year. It is so beautifully written. It's an amazing story and Janet Fitch tells it so well. No matter how many times I've read it before, I just can't put the book down.

for more information click here

No words to describe this book!

White Oleander is incomparable to any other book; Janet Fitch is an astronomical writer! I have read this book 5 times now and every time I fall in love with it just a little bit more... From Ingrid's strong, feminist personality to Astrid's need of love, this book could not have been written any better! The writing is so descriptive and unique it is almost poetic, breathtaking! One of the first paragraphs is what sucked me in, "The Santa Ana's 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 blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon." If that excerpt alone doesn't make you want to read this then I am not sure anything else I could say will.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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. --Katherine Anderson

for more information click here

hot