Name: White Oleander
Rating: 4.111904761904762 (210 reviews)
ISBN: 9780605396074

Janet Fitch

Mary Agnes Donoghue

When a woman murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life, her daughter must navigate a series of foster homes. Contains mature material.

White Oleander

A Novel

Amelia C 

I've never read a book like this, it's also usually not the genre I would have read, but after watching the movie I knew i had to read the book.

It's incredibly poetic and real. It takes up so many topics in a reflective way and really grips the reader. 

I took many breaks while i read it, since it was new to me and also at times challenging

I related a lot to Astrid's character, the way her mind works, her thoughts, observations it gave me flashbacks to a part of who I used to be

Lulu Evensen

I've never read a book like this, it's also usually not the genre I would have read, but after watching the movie I knew i had to read the book.

It's incredibly poetic and real. It takes up so many topics in a reflective way and really grips the reader. 

I took many breaks while i read it, since it was new to me and also at times challenging

I related a lot to Astrid's character, the way her mind works, her thoughts, observations it gave me flashbacks to a part of who I used to be

Grace M

This novel is nothing short of a mental and emotional odyssey. Pain and beauty radiate from every page, every word. Reading this novel felt like living through Astrid's adolecense with her, which made it all the more gut-wrenching when things went awry. Harrowing, hypnotic, and completely unforgettable.

Michael Springer

I couldn't stop reading this book until I had finished it. It's very good.

Trish

This book is a beautiful tragedy. It’s so well written, the lyrical quality of the prose is just unprecedented in my mind. Ingrid Magnussen must be the most selfish, calculated, cruel, and deranged character I've encountered and yet I couldn't help but admire her beauty, her dedication to her aesthetic, her superiority complex, her unwavering pride and confidence. This is a story that will stay with me for years to come, and given the nature of the writing, I'm positive that it is a book I will re-read several times in the future.

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Haylie

What a gripping, wild ride. I've started and stopped this book several times before making an effort to read it in 2018, but this time is the charm because I am so appreciative to witness such beautiful writing! Janet Fitch is now on my list of authors to admire because there's just something about the way she commands a sentence and the way she describes something as simple as a shack of something as abstract as the feeling of longing. No spoilers, but with such a crazy middle in happy the ending left on a calmer note. Not to mention the character development of Astrid is something to acknowledge and take note of when character building.

A New York Times Bestseller Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery -- but their idyll is shattered when Ingrid falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, she murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid's journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.

Lauren Tabor

This was such an interesting book and maybe not normally something I'd pick up. But I found it at a thrift store and somewhere in my brain knew that it is a book people have talked about, so I picked it up. I really enjoyed reading this, the writing was beautiful and the story was heartbreaking and captivating. The mother and daughter relationship in this was so interesting. I couldn't help but become fully engrossed in this story to see how it ended up.

Catherine Mazeika

This book tells a sad profound story but I somehow felt myself not super engaged and wanting to pick this up. Also felt like the poetic writing style was a bit much at times almost to the point of fake deep

Georgia Carr

White Oleander is conveyed through the most beautiful combinations of words. It's poetic and startling. The plot is good, the characters are real and I really liked it.

Silje Løvli Lorentsen

Easily the best book I have read in years. I can open any page in the book and find something ordinary or human described beautifully.

Heather Roden  

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Rachel

White Oleander is dark and depressing, but beautifully written. My opinion of Ingrid flowed with Astrid’s feelings that changed as more time passed. You miss her, you hate her, you wish she would go away then suddenly it becomes you want to know shes at least not worst mother in the world and surprisingly she does care somewhat, Ingrid is just very flawed. Astrid goes though a lot of homes with different dynamics and Astrid working through them to find her place. She discovers who she really is when she is away from her mom and its heartbreaking at times because she can be in a hopeless state of mind thinking she doesn’t deserve to have hope and a future then she actually accepts there are options for her out there only for it to come crashing back down. I felt frustrated at first at the ending, Astrid still wanting to be with Ingrid, but she struggled with that the entire book so it only makes sense for her to want to be back with her mom, but has reservations (rightfully so too). There are parts that are uncomfortable, but that is what makes the novel feel good to read as well as the flow of the words. Highly recommend.

White Oleander

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