toniapeckover 's review for:

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

2.0

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I read this to compliment some ideas I am gathering about narcissism and mothering and Fitch offers a decent portrayal of that. The rest of the story was disappointing, despite its readability, which is why I'm struggling with how to rate this. The journey of the child, Astrid, through foster care is predictably dire. Either California's foster care system in the 90's was *very* different from other states' systems or Fitch knows nothing about it. For sure there are bad foster parents, but as a former foster parent myself, I know there are basic housing requirements and oversights that would have prevented nearly all the situations Astrid encounters. (Fitch partially solves these problems by making her social workers inept idiots who never visit the houses where she lives.) There is a truly disturbing, overly-explicit sexual relationship with a man in his 50's and another later on, all dealt with as if Astrid is just unusually sophisticated and sexually competent. So many of the truly disturbing things that happen to Astrid are dismissed out of hand as she moves on to her next tragedy. Any one of the horrifying things that Astrid deals with would be enough for a novel. This just feels like overkill. Ugh.