White Oleander by Janet Fitch

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Synopsis:

This book is about themes of motherhood and starts out when Astrid is twelve years old. She is artistic and very shy and lives with her manipulative mother, Ingrid. When Astrid is twelve, her mother gets arrested for the murder of her former boyfriend, Barry, from poisoning him with oleander sap. She is sentenced to murder for life. Astrid is moved from one foster home to the next.

Her first foster mother is Starr, a former stripper and recovering drug addict and alcoholic. Astrid is sexually abused by Starr’s boyfriend, Ray. After confronting Ray over his relationship with Astrid, Starr shoots Astrid and Astrid is hospitalized for a few weeks.

Her second foster family is Ed and Marvel Tulock and their two small children. Astrid is used as an unpaid babysitter. She dislikes them because of their house and Marvel’s racism.

Her third foster family is a Hispanic woman named Amelia Ramos who starved her foster children. After that, she is placed with a former actress, Claire Richards and her husband, Ron. Astrid is finally doing well in school and pursuing art and still communicating with her mother in prison. Claire suspects that Ron is having an affair and struggles with depression and overdoses on drugs.

Astrid’s final foster family is with a Russian immigrant woman, Rena. She is sexually abused by Rena’s boyfriend, Sergei. The book ends with Astrid, whom is now twenty years old, living with her boyfriend, Paul, in Berlin. Her mother is released from prison. Astrid chooses to stay with Paul over reuniting with her mother.

Review:

I enjoyed this book and loved the themes of mothers and daughters.

“How many children had this happened to? How many children were like me, floating like plankton in the wide ocean? I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children, between friends, family, things you think are eternal.”

“There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately, as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?”

“Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows you room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness.”