White Oleander

Spring "Break" (more like Spring Extended Weekend) provided me an opportunity to read. A lot. I quickly read my most recent book, White Oleander, by Janet Fitch, over the space of about 48 hours. This is a book Kendra had picked up and just recently completed.

The book follows the journey of Astrid who, after her mother is convicted of killing an ex-boyfriend, finds herself bouncing from foster home to foster home, struggling to find her identity in the process.

Exploring the all too often mediocre world of foster care is a wonderful idea, if done correctly. Fitch, an excellent writer, does a terrible job at it. She exploits and manipulates your feelings by presenting an utterly unrealistic picture under the guise of realistic fiction. Astrid finds herself in a total of 6 foster care placements, each one riddled with issues. The situations she lands in are all pretty extreme, and while they are individually believable, the sum total of her situations is not. Yes, awful things happen to people, and there are a lot of poor foster care placements. However, in the span of 6 years, Astrid goes through pretty much every worst-case scenario of a teenager in foster care. It's simply too much to believe.

This would have made a nice fantasy/fairy-tale but instead is meant to be seen as a real-life scenario. No wonder Oprah picked it as one of her book club picks. It's sad, introspective, and a picture of life in an unfortunate scenario. If Fitch had zoomed in on two or three of these situations, I would have bought it. But this - is just an unecessary manipulative emotional rollercoaster.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

completed 4/25...14 books, 56 days...at this rate I'll read 91 books