Book Review: White Oleander
Author:Janet Fitch Book: White Oleander Publisher:Little Brown Pages: 433
White Oleander</a>
I just recently read this book, after seeing the movie back when it first came out a couple of years ago. I realy liked it. The book was fantastic. It creeped me out how Astrid was into her mother so much
I liked the layers of the book, it went into deep detail about Astrid and her struggle to become her own person. The girl's story is so heartwrenching. The writing style is fantabulous with Astrid's point of view.
What I didn't like, how Astrid couldn't become her own person after all that time, and still didn't feel the love she wanted in her heart. Her mother, her cruel heartless mother just left her out to dry. It also had an awkward cut at the end which confused me, as to how she was in a certain place and time. Also Astrid seemed to suck up whatever atmosphere she was in, but that was an in between point for me, because she thought that she just needed to survive.
Back of the book-"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 foster homes-each it's own universe, with it's own laws, it's own dangers, it's own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery"
Well I agree with that, but I got this book, because the movie was beautiful and the book was on my mind all the time. I got it as a Christmas gift with heavy hinting.
The movie was a little more optimistic, but I liked the bleak tone of it, that was more real than her mother coming back from jail. In the movie her mother stays in jail to let Astrid go, butt I think the main tone of the book was that her mother needed Astrid to suffer as she did, to torture her because that's how she was.
Overall the book was good, the movie was good, but I daren't compare the two because the tones are completely different.