2026 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss White Oleander by Janet Fitch.

Pages: 446 pages


Length: 1 Month (February)


Participants: Dubhease, Valeria, Alexw .


Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Probably going to start this at the weekend.

My copy finally came into the library today. I should pick it up tomorrow and start it on the weekend.

Sounds great and am looking forward to your comments as I will also start this weekend.

Just read the first chapter. I really appreciate it when an author shows you (rather than tells you) and that’s the case here. Looks like it’s going to be a good read.

End of chapter 4. (view spoiler)[well that was sort of the reading equivalent of watching an inevitable car crash without any power to stop it happening. Poor Astrid of course is being taken along as an unwilling passenger. Sort of wondering what the attraction was as he was so not her type. Was she really in love? Certainly an example of ‘hell hath no fury’ in terms of her obsession with revenge but wondering where that level of hatred comes from. (hide spoiler)]

Valerie wrote: "End of chapter 4. [spoilers removed]"

I've read up to chapter 8. It's reminding me a tiny bit of the Kite Runner, only because both books were beautifully written while describing heart breaking things.

Also, up to Chapter 8. Am surprised that is more about a young girl coming of age rather than the murder trial of the mother which must have been very dramatic giving the mother's emotions that she displayed before the murder.

I suppose the book is about how she becomes Astrid in her own right rather than Ingrid’s daughter. So far she is definitely trapped in patterns imposed by her relationship with her mother but it’ll be interesting to see if she can break out of them.

Great point, Valerie and one that I had not even thought of which is why I love buddy reading as your take was completely different than mine which makes me look at the novel in an entirely new way. Thanks!

End of chapter 18. (view spoiler)[ so a real test for Astrid now, can she save Claire from her toxic mother (in fact will she choose Claire over Ingrid) and will Claire see Astrid as more than her mother’s daughter. Would like to think that all would be well but have a foreboding that it won’t. (hide spoiler)]

You think right-ecch happens but will not say what echh is

End of chapter 26. (view spoiler)[ very powerful image, Astrid cutting up her mother’s letters to create her own truth. Hoping this is the start of something better as it’s been a litany of misery so far. (hide spoiler)]

All three of us have read to where Starr shoots Astrid twice with a .38 which is a powerful pistol. !! I was shocked by that writing and was amazed that she recovered. Did either of you react the way I did to this gruesome attempt to murder Astrid?

I suppose for me being British the idea that there would be guns in a house with foster children is just unthinkable and frankly crazy.

Good point. I have guns but are stored in a house with no children.

Finished. (view spoiler)[ I liked the final part of the book because it wasn’t a ‘Hollywood ending’. I hate it when books (and films) where someone has suffered deep trauma finish with a neat resolution. Astrid is still a work in progress and will probably always struggle but she has made the choice to be her own person in a difficult world rather than the apparently easier option of being Ingrid’s daughter. The suitcase idea was a really creative take on the old adage ‘what doesn’t kill me makes me, if not stronger at least who I am’. (hide spoiler)]

Finished too and will not go into much detail until Dubhease finishes. Can you see Astrid becoming so jealous that she kills someone like her mother killed her lover?

I finished chapter 18. Since you are both done, I won't put anything behind spoilers.

I've known people who have fostered kids, with mixed success, but they are good people. Of course, that doesn't make good fiction.

After enduring crazy alcoholic Starr and her pedophile boyfriend, racist Marvel who just wanted a babysitter and maid, and the sadistic Argentinian lady, Claire and Ron seem like she's won the jackpot.

I noticed how she got an injury at every terrible foster home. Starr shot her; the dog attack at Marvel's; and she was so malnourished at the last place that she stopped getting her period.

I think craziness and manipulation is a recurring theme. Starr was crazy. Who would have thought impotence means a man is having an affair? (He was, but seriously, that was her tip off?) Marvel tried to manipulate the cops. Even Claire trying to manipulate or gaslight her husband with her box under her bed.

I thought all along that the real villain in the book was Ingrid. All Astrid's stories of her childhood are of moving as her mother bounces from lover to lover (yet she judged Olivia) . All the stories about her mother being drunk or on drugs. How she never told Astrid who her father was. How she killed someone, not caring what it would do to Astrid. She treated Astrid like an object all her life, not the way a mother loves her children.

And the gaslighting from prison. Still not caring about Astrid's life. Trying to stop Astrid from getting attached to anyone. (Ray was a good call.) And now, she'd trying to poison Clare against Astrid. And literally telling her how to poison her husband.

Alexw wrote: "All three of us have read to where Starr shoots Astrid twice with a .38 which is a powerful pistol. !! I was shocked by that writing and was amazed that she recovered. Did either of you react the w..."

I'm a Canadian. I don't know anyone who owns a gun. (I know two people who go to gun clubs - but the guns are stored there. Canada's pretty strict about storage. I think you can lose your permit if you break the rules.) I'm not really up on gun types, except what I see in books.

Ray mentions early on that he has a gun. He threatens to shoot Starr's preacher if he starts messing with her. I guess it really was Chekov's gun.

I am amazed at how Ingrid seems to have this hypnotic effect on people and bend them to her will so easily. Astrid finally sees her for who she really is, but Claire falls so easily into Ingrid's web of deceit as Ingrid confirms Claire fear about Ron having an affair after one meeting!!

In an interview, the author describes Ingrid as a monster. She said she originally wrote a short story just about Ingrid but was told that she needed to include a more sympathetic character who readers could relate to and that was the origin of Astrid.

Somewhere in chapter 22. Claire either killed herself or it was "misadventure" (or whatever coroners call it.) I said she acquired an injury in every foster home. This one may be worse than the physical ones.

At least she got 2 years of a nice home and being loved before being institutionalized. I hope she stops talking to her mother. Who knows what damage her mother's letters did to Claire.

I see Dubhease has finished and rated the novel with 3 stars and I really like your message on the unresolved ending. I will rate it slightly higher at 4 stars and I feel if Ingrid gets jilted again, that she would kill without question. A more important question is if Astrid gets dumped, will she kill?

I finished it yesterday. I gave it three stars because of the ending. It seemed both rushed and yet resolved nothing. Sort of like, the author didn't know how to end it, so she threw some random ideas into the last chapter.

I did like the book, despite reading it by mistake. I added it a long time ago. I knew oleander was poisonous. I thought it was a crime novel - that someone killed someone with oleander and it would be proving it or not in a police case and a trial. All that happened. It just happened in the first 40 pages and then there were 350 pages left of Astrid's story. I'm not sure if I would have read it, if I'd known that it was the sad story of a girl bouncing from one terrible foster home to another.

I did think it was very well written.

Another great point. Would it not be fascinating to see Ingrid's reaction when she gets sentenced for the murder? Would have loved to see the rage she exhibited when they hauled her off to jail after the verdict was read.

Dubhease wrote: "I finished it yesterday. I gave it three stars because of the ending. It seemed both rushed and yet resolved nothing. Sort of like, the author didn't know how to end it, so she threw some random id..."

I agree it was really well written and that made all the difference. I found the movie online and without the poetry it just played as a melodrama. I suspect the murder part was just to entice in readers.

I really enjoyed this buddy read and, as always, your comments were intriguing and helped me to see different viewpoints of this book-thanks.

Valerie - I think you're right about the movie (which I never saw). I might have had the idea it was a crime and court room book from a movie trailer.

I'm not mad about the idea I had. About twice a year, I end up reading books where I thought it was about X, but really it's about Y.

Everyone's comments about finding it hard to believe that a family would get a foster child with a gun in the house was fascinating because I didn't find that hard to believe, not in a book set in the US.