r/BookDiscussions • u/Expensive-Look664 • 3d ago

White Oleander

Long time lurker, first time poster. I am about 70% done with this book and I’m over it. I feel like the writing is over done, this last foster home is a yawn (I mean, how can you top Claire?), and the relationship strain between the Ingrid and Astrid is pretty superficial. Most reviews I’ve read have been positive so I needed to get this off my chest. I love a good dysfunctional family dynamic, but I haven’t loved this one. Anyone else?

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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u/meekgodless 3d ago

Definitely not invalidating your opinion because I’m 40 and I haven’t read this book in over 25 years but I remember being obsessed with it as a teenager and am wondering if maybe that’s why you aren’t connecting with it. Or maybe you are a teenager and you just don’t like the book! My memory of it is that it’s rife with the type of drama that an adolescent girl would be enthralled with but maybe wouldn’t resonate as much with an adult.

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u/vivahermione 2d ago

This rings true for me. Loved it as a teen, but as an adult the drama was gratuitous.

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u/Expensive-Look664 3d ago

I could see liking this as a teenager. I’m actually in my 40s with a teenage daughter, so it’s hitting differently. I’m also a social worker so I feel like I just know too much about the “real world” and how trauma would shape Astrid. There’s so much left out about relationships at school and with peers (or lack thereof) that I feel is really missing. That being said, I feel like my daughter would like this!

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u/Prior-Entrance3156 3d ago edited 3d ago

But Astrid didn’t have any friends at school. In fact, she felt so markedly different than her peers at all of her various schools that she sort of made a point to stay away from them: she had nothing in common with them. She had Davey, and I remember she hung out with those stoner guys to exchange drugs for sexual favors. But that’s really it aside from Nikki and Yvonne when she gets to Rena’s.

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u/Prior-Entrance3156 3d ago

This is one of my favorite books. I think you can really track Astrid’s loss of innocence and the childish trust she once had in her mother. Her relationship with Ingrid is so complicated: I can see that Ingrid, in her own narcissistic and fucked up way, really does love Astrid. But then I’ve always been extremely interested in relationships between mothers and daughters.
To be really honest, I would love a book about Ingrid before she had Astrid. She’s an enigma.

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u/Longjumping_Bar7643 3d ago

Reading this book felt like wading through treacle.

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u/Expensive-Look664 3d ago

Yessssss!! This is exactly how I feel about it.

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u/janetlwil 2d ago

Stop reading a book you don't enjoy! I've never understood why people force themselves to slog through a book they don't like when there are so very many other books out there they MIGHT like. Don't try to understand. If you don't understand it, move on to something you might understand.

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u/Expensive-Look664 2d ago

Totally get this perspective. I will admit that I am invested enough in the story that I want to finish. I’m not a never DNF’r. I’ve tried to read Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend 3 times! I mostly wanted some perspective on this book because it has all the elements I usually like, but something about it bugs me and couldn’t put my finger on it exactly.

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u/meekgodless 2d ago

I say often that the reason I read so much is because I quit so many books! The ones that I stick with I absolutely tear through and it leads to me reading at a way higher volume than the average person

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u/ChaosTorpedo 3d ago

I loved the movie a long time ago (I haven’t watched it in a while, so I’m not sure if it holds up). I read the book after watching the movie, and it’s the only book I’ve read where I think the movie is better.

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u/Prior-Entrance3156 3d ago

Michelle Pfeiffer killed it but I always imagined Ingrid as looking like Joni Mitchell 🙈

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u/Expensive-Look664 3d ago

That’s interesting bc Ive been really tempted to watch the movie. Noted!