hearts and laserbeams book report: white oleander

ok so when my buddy justin found out i was reading this for my second book report he point blank asked if i was only going to read boring novels, and where was the explosions and fire. AND whenever he asked if i was done with it yet, he'd call it white boreleander.

listen up buddy, just because it was an oprah's book club selection doesn't make it a snoozefest! read on:

white oleander by janet fitch

ok so this book is fundamentally about a superbitchy mother and her daughter learning that her mom's a jerk.

so the mom is super obsessed with being a hoity toity snooty poet and loves making fun of people behind their backs because they're not as pretty or smart or cool as her or whatever, and she feeds this crap to her kid constantly.

she meets this dude barry who likes her a lot and he starts showing up at parties and poetry readings she's at all stalker high school style and she won't get with him because he's fat and uglee and whatever.

i don't remember what changes, it happens pretty early on and this book was like 450 pages long which isn't as much as the unabridged version of the stand but is still pretty long... anyways all of a sudden they do hook up and she's all into him and oh shit did i tell you this mom is a total ho and has all kinds of one night stands with guys because they're hot and then writes poems about it after? yeah she a ho and she doesn't ever try to hide that from her kid astrid.

ANYWAYS, so the mom's going out with this barry dude and then finds out he's a player and that he's started seeing someone else.

AND SHE EFFING MURDERS HIS ASS.

so then she winds up in prison, right? the awesome thing about this book is that it wasn't about her and her effed up brains, it was about her kid that got left behind in foster homes. this kid, you feel so bad for her because her mom pretty much effed up her brain and she doesn't know how to deal with this shit and she ends up in some pretty messed up situations.

throughout the book she's in 6 different foster homes and all of them are shitty! even the one that was good ended up shitty cuz the mom killed herself! good lord! are all foster homes really that messed up? cuz daaaaaaaaayum!!! one foster mother shot astrid! pow kablammo!

so yes. long story short it's about astrid going through foster care, but more so about her realizing who she is while she's free from her mom's craziness. it's about her realizing who her mom is, and separating herself from it, and it was awesome. end of the book is really good, i ain't gonna lie to you.

if you dig stories about people in shitty situations learnin how to deal and getting out of it this book's for you!

ratings:
4 hearts - there wasn't much to hate about this book at all! loved it! pow!!

1 fart - there is some pretty fucked up shit that happens to the kid astrid... so there's that. pow pow!!!