White Oleander by Janet Fitch (Semi Review)

Synopsis :

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 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.

I have never done a what I termed, a 'semi-review' before.  This is not a full review as in I didn't read the whole book.  I just did enough research and read part of it to get a feel of how the book would be like and to know the plot and development of the story.

The reason why I didn't want to read it is because it's another coming of age book and while I have nothing against the topic I don't think I can deal with another coming of age book as I just read one recently.


White Oleander is as much the story of a girl called Astrid (quite a beautiful name) and her mother, Ingrid.  Generally, I think it is a nicely written book but I also think that it's a rather depression subject matter and disturbing at certain point and it's just not a book that I wish to read about at this time.

There is something poingnantly  beautiful about the way the book is written.  I was captivated by the way Janet writes and I won't mind reading this book in the future or perhaps her other titles just to experience her writing style.

This book was selected by Oprah's Book Club in year 1999 and three years later, a feature film with the same title was released.  It stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Alison Lohman and Renee Zellweger.