My First Official Blog! / Review of White Oleander

Yes! This is my first entry in my blog! I just started this blog on a whim, mainly because I needed to register so I could comment on someone else's blog that I really wanted to comment on.
As for right now, I'll probably just use this blog to ramble on about things that are going on around me, what I'm doing with my life, and most likely about books I've read and movies I've seen recently.

My first official blog is going to be about a book I've just completed, White Oleander by Janet Fitch. First of all, I'd like to start out by saying that I did not set out to get this book purposefully; instead, it found me. I have a friend who works for a small township, so she ends up working at the dump/recycling area for the township. Every once in a while, people stop by and drop off boxes and boxes of books that they just want to throw out. When I heard about this, I asked her to start keeping some books for me. One day, she stopped by with a box of books, one of them being White Oleander. I didn't give it much thought at first, so for a few weeks, it just sat around. Then, when I was out of choice reading material, I saw it sitting on my bookshelf and picked it up. Four days later, I was finished, after nights of not being able to put it down until 5:30am.

Needless to say, this book was amazing! It's a ficticious tale of a teenaged girl's adventure in the world of the American foster care system. The entire story is narrated from her point of view. Though I'm not going to get into very much detail (for fear of ruining this great work for anyone hoping to read it), I will give a brief synopsis:

The story starts with Astrid (the main character) describing her life with her mother. After a quick turn of out-of-the-ordinary events, Ingrid (her mother) ends up with a life sentence to prison, so Astrid enters the world of foster homes.

Her homes range from living in a converted trailer, to a run down house, to a beautiful masion lurking with a daily struggle for life, and many more. Each foster home comes with a story of its own, each story a unique adventure.

Because Astrid changes homes so often, the characters and settings in the book change frequently as well, making it hard to put the book down because you're always wondering what's going to happen next.

This book was a great read. Although it is a work of fiction, the story was written so well that you could believe it was actually happening to someone.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who craves a good story.

Next on my list: Watch the Motion Picture based on the novel.