Product Description

White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity.Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure.

'LIQUID POETRY' - Oprah Winfrey

'Tangled, Complex and extraordinarily moving' - Observer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18316 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 390 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 mould 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

Cosmopolitan
'Hardhitting, compelling and brilliantly written'

THE TIMES
'Graceful'

Customer Reviews

Brilliant writing
An intriguing story about a girl named Astrid who spends 6 years in various foster homes after her mother is sent to prison for murdering an ex-boyfriend. The book shows the effects of each of the foster homes in shaping Astrid's life but pivots around the changing relationship with her mother. A great read with well developed characters and descriptions. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the ending, perhaps a little bit too happy for this story.

Absolutely amazing
I well and truely loved this book.
It was so beautifully written and the decription Janet Fitch used was excellent. It really did create a vivid picture in my head and made me feel part of Astrids world.
All the events that took place amazed and gripped me to the extend that I sat and read for a whole sunday without breaks, I was hooked.
It really helped me because I was at a time in a my life where I just wanted to escape from everything and this book provided that trap door for me to think about something else.
It moved me to tears which a book has never done before.
I recommend this to everyone I adore this story.

What you see is what you get
A book that doesn't disappoint. This was my reading group's last read and for once, we all enjoyed this one.