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aramsamsam's review against another edition
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
michaelpdonley's review against another edition
5.0
Incredibly insightful portrait of an elitist, impossible mother and her brilliant, abandoned daughter. Told from the daughter's perspective, we experience her coming of age in a series of foster homes. The voice of the novel matures with the narrator, and we discover and rediscover who her mother really is, and how central that relationship is - for better or for worse.
lv00009's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
burningupasun's review against another edition
CW: Pedophilia (detailed and portrayed as "consensual").
Yeah I just couldn't do it. I tried! At first the only issue was the prose but then when it got into the detailed descriptions of a 13-14 year old's "consensual" sexual relationship with a 40+ year old man, I was out. Not for me. I only got like 20% of the way through so I won't rate it or count it towards my 2019 books, though. But yeah, wish I'd seen some trigger warnings before reading this.
Yeah I just couldn't do it. I tried! At first the only issue was the prose but then when it got into the detailed descriptions of a 13-14 year old's "consensual" sexual relationship with a 40+ year old man, I was out. Not for me. I only got like 20% of the way through so I won't rate it or count it towards my 2019 books, though. But yeah, wish I'd seen some trigger warnings before reading this.
eulrch's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
soralune's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
5.0
edla_'s review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
thechaliceofaries's review against another edition
5.0
I knew from the first fifteen pages of this book that I'd have to write a review for it as soon as I was done. I am a sucker for lyrical, poetic prose and this book is just overflowing with beautiful language.
Make no mistake, though. While the whimsical, dreamlike writing softens it some, the story of White Oleander is not for the fainthearted. It is jagged, heartbreaking, and raw, but something about it is hypnotising in its poignancy - it lulls you in and keeps you hooked. It is essentially an examination of the dysfunctional relationship between a young girl and her beautiful, poetic mother. Astrid, aged twelve when the story starts, adores her aloof and unpredictable mother Ingrid, determined to be as beautiful and admired and artistic as her. Equally, Ingrid tries to make her daughter view the world as she does - a world of words, where reality becomes transformed through her manipulation of language.
All of this changes when Ingrid commits murder, and is sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Being given space from her mother's moulding hands, Astrid climbs through her teen years being swivelled from one foster home to the next - each with its own promise, each with its own suffering. All the while, as she grows up, her relationship with her mother and her own identity are in conflict, and what began as any child's religious devotion to the parent that raised them spirals into one filled with doubt and anger and a longing for reconciliation.
There's so much in this book that I love, so much I could go on and on talking about, thinking about, dreaming about. But without a doubt, it's the writing that got to me the most. It was so masterfully done, achingly sharp at moments, so much so that there were certain lines that I had to just go back and read over and over again, trying to absorb the beauty.
To let the writing speak for itself, I made a list of my favourite lines from the book (excluding those that allude to spoilers, of course) so that if nothing else might convince you to read it, at least this will:
"Always learn poems by heart," she said. "They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."
Shooting stars hurled themselves into the empty places, burned up. Just like this. I could have swallowed the night whole.
How beautiful she had been, how perfectly unhinged.
People wanted monsters and ghosts and voices from beyond the grave. Something foreign, intentional, not senseless and familiar as a kid getting shot for his leather jacket.
Your blood whispers my name. Even in rebellion, you are mine.
How vast was a human being’s capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn’t a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.
The philosopher who said we think, therefore we are, should have spent an hour in the maternity ward of Waite Memorial Hospital. He’d have to change his whole philosophy. The mind was so thin, barely a spiderweb, with all its fine thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in its own importance. Watch how easily it unravels, evaporates under the first lick of pain. Gasping on the bed, Yvonne bordered on the unrecognisable, disintegrating into a ripe collection of nerves, fibres, sacs, and waters and the ancient clock in the blood. Compared to this eternal body, the individual was a smoke, a cloud. The body was the only reality. I hurt, therefore I am.
Make no mistake, though. While the whimsical, dreamlike writing softens it some, the story of White Oleander is not for the fainthearted. It is jagged, heartbreaking, and raw, but something about it is hypnotising in its poignancy - it lulls you in and keeps you hooked. It is essentially an examination of the dysfunctional relationship between a young girl and her beautiful, poetic mother. Astrid, aged twelve when the story starts, adores her aloof and unpredictable mother Ingrid, determined to be as beautiful and admired and artistic as her. Equally, Ingrid tries to make her daughter view the world as she does - a world of words, where reality becomes transformed through her manipulation of language.
All of this changes when Ingrid commits murder, and is sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Being given space from her mother's moulding hands, Astrid climbs through her teen years being swivelled from one foster home to the next - each with its own promise, each with its own suffering. All the while, as she grows up, her relationship with her mother and her own identity are in conflict, and what began as any child's religious devotion to the parent that raised them spirals into one filled with doubt and anger and a longing for reconciliation.
There's so much in this book that I love, so much I could go on and on talking about, thinking about, dreaming about. But without a doubt, it's the writing that got to me the most. It was so masterfully done, achingly sharp at moments, so much so that there were certain lines that I had to just go back and read over and over again, trying to absorb the beauty.
To let the writing speak for itself, I made a list of my favourite lines from the book (excluding those that allude to spoilers, of course) so that if nothing else might convince you to read it, at least this will:
"Always learn poems by heart," she said. "They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."
Shooting stars hurled themselves into the empty places, burned up. Just like this. I could have swallowed the night whole.
How beautiful she had been, how perfectly unhinged.
People wanted monsters and ghosts and voices from beyond the grave. Something foreign, intentional, not senseless and familiar as a kid getting shot for his leather jacket.
Your blood whispers my name. Even in rebellion, you are mine.
How vast was a human being’s capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn’t a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.
The philosopher who said we think, therefore we are, should have spent an hour in the maternity ward of Waite Memorial Hospital. He’d have to change his whole philosophy. The mind was so thin, barely a spiderweb, with all its fine thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in its own importance. Watch how easily it unravels, evaporates under the first lick of pain. Gasping on the bed, Yvonne bordered on the unrecognisable, disintegrating into a ripe collection of nerves, fibres, sacs, and waters and the ancient clock in the blood. Compared to this eternal body, the individual was a smoke, a cloud. The body was the only reality. I hurt, therefore I am.