White Oleander by Janet Fitch; Read by Oprah Winfrey
Audiobook, Hachette Audio, Abridged, 6 hours; Available online at Amazon.com.

This book is written from the perspective of teenager Astrid Magnussen, whose lot it is to live her early years with her mother Ingrid, a self-absorbed, grandiose woman who manipulates her daughter and everyone she encounters. Naturally, like most little girls, Astrid idolizes her mother and thrills to even the slightest bit of attention from Ingrid, and such attention is minimal at best and more than borders on mental and emotional abuse. Even after Ingrid poisons, and thus kills, a lover who dares to leave her and gets sent off to jail for a life sentence, she finds ways to manipulate and inflict pain on her daughter. In short, the story is both eloquent and heart-wrenching.

The author uses masterful, powerful imagery as she shares the sad, desperate journey of a young woman who struggles to find herself while being sent from foster home to foster home. She encounters situations, people, and experiences that continually seem to shake her to her core and reveal her ever intensifying internal battles, her ever growing strength, and finally the adaptive resiliency of her young spirit. This strength is the one "useful" quality her mother did possess and passed along to Astrid - more aptly put, she forced self-preservation on Astrid from an early age because of her self-centered lifestyle and regular neglect of her daughter. Astrid seeks out and masters her inner strength primarily because she has no choice if she wants to survive.

Despite and perhaps even because of the intense and harsh nature of Astrid's journey, she does blossom and manage to take hold of her own life. It must be said that this story is not for the faint of heart as Astrid does encounter innumerable experiences of emotional, sexual, physical, and psychological abuse.

I must admit that I immersed myself in this book and personally found the story troubling and slightly depressing, though the imagery and poetry of the narrative swept me under its spell and kept me engaged. Since this reader/reviewer was raised in a home in which we regularly took in foster children, I know too well how plausible many of Astrid's experiences are and this made the reading even that much more heartbreaking for me.

I would not recommend this book to young teens or children based on themes and content. I would, however, recommend this book to adults, especially women, who want to enjoy some beautiful writing while being reminded of the resiliency of the human spirit.

About the Narration

Oprah's reading of this book is powerful and magical. You feel how much she loves the poetry of the words and the story throughout your listening experience. The best way I can think of to describe her reading is that she seems to taste each word and phrase and read in such a way that you also want to indulge in the intense complexities and richness of the words passing from her lips to your ears. She is articulate and almost musical in her performance. Wrap up in your coziest blanket and just feel the story fall in and around you as she reads. That's exactly what I did and it truly was an engrossing, heart-wrenching, and powerful experience.

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