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I’ve finished dark, disturbing novels and said, “I’m glad I
read that. It wasn’t all happy, but I’m glad I read that.” When
I put down this dark, disturbing novel, however, I wished I hadn’t read
it. Quite frankly, I’m not sure why Oprah liked it.
Don’t get me wrong—when I put this book down my heart was pounding
and it was the wee hours—I’d stayed up late to finish it because it
was so compelling. But I genuinely wished I hadn’t read it. It’s not
that I try to shield myself from people in tough circumstances, or that I always
demand a happy ending. I had a hard time with this book, though.
In White Oleander, the main character, Astrid, was passionately attached
to her selfish and unbalanced poet mother, who killed her lover and subsequently
went to jail, leaving Astrid to be shuffled from foster home to foster home
and scarred in a fresh way by each new and horrible situation. As Astrid learned
to toughen herself to her situations and the fresh pain she found in each one,
I found myself toughening toward the author. I had this odd feeling that the
author didn’t want the reader to be able to relate to Astrid entirely and
that she was almost enjoying putting Astrid (and with her, the reader) in all
those terrible situations.
It’s not that I think it’s wrong to be hurt by books, but in this
one the author seemed to be dragging me ruthlessly into Astrid’s broken
world as some sort of punishment or emotional vent. And I found myself not happy
that she’d dragged me where I didn’t want to go. And sorry that I
couldn’t reclaim the time.
