He had bars on all the windows now. She stroked his new security door with the pads of her fingers like it was fur. “Taste his fear. It tastes just like champagne. Cold and crisp and absolutely without sweetness.”
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 32
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
It was as if I was blind and she’d told me, sight doesn’t matter, it’s just as well you can’t see.
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 23
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
That was Ingrid Magnussen. She made up rules and suddenly they were engraved on the Rosetta Stone, they’d been brought to the surface from a cave under the Dead Sea, they were inscribed on scrolls from the T’ang Dynasty.
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 20
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
I had seen girls clamor for new clothes and complain about what their mothers made for dinner. I was always mortified. Didn’t they know they were tying their mothers to the ground? Weren’t chains ashamed of their prisoners?
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 13
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
I didn’t want to remind her that I was the reason she was trapped in electric bills and kid’s shoes grown too small, the reason she was clawing at the windows like Michaels dying tomatoes. She was a beautiful woman dragging a crippled foot and I was that foot. I was bricks sewn into the hem of her clothes, I was a steel dress.
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 12
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
I thought clay must feel happy in the good potter’s hand.
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 11
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
My mother was not herself in the time of the Santa Anas. I was twelve years old and I was afraid for her.
– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 7
Version:
ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week; whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written.
Mother prescribing her books like medicines. A good dose of Whitman would set me straight, like caster oil.
Summary:
Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery – but their idyll is shattered when Astrid’s mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison.
White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid’s journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.
Thank you Bookshelf Fantasies for this fun book meme!
Darkestwings Reads