The book that I am currently fully enjoying and enraptured in is called White Oleander by Janet Fitch. It is about the struggle of one girl, Astrid to discover who she is where she belongs and how it feels to be loved and wanted through various Los Angeles foster homes.Ingrid, a brilliant poet, a struggling artist, and Astrid's mother becomes imprisoned for the murder of her ex-boyfriend Barry Kolker. Due to tramatic experiences with men in the past Ingrid becomes a heartless, self-centered coniving yet stunnigly beautiful woman who is unseduceable. She believes that nothing is purely good and always tells Astrid to guard herself from the world. Even when they are gazing at a beautiful full moon together, whereas Astrid describes it as a "baby-face moon," Ingrid counters, "It's a traitor's moon" (4) Because her mother always has an impenetratable iron wall around her, Astrid envies "the way [other] mothers sat on [their girls'] beds and asked what they were thinking." She thinks that her "mother was not in the least bit curious about [her]. Astrid even wonders to herself if her mother "thought [she] was a dog she could tie in front of the store," or "a parrot on her shoulder"(11). Ingrid's biggest fear is to fall in love and when Barry succeeds in seducing her, using her, then dumping her like a piece of trash, she swears revenge. Ingrid eventually gets sent to prison for killing her ex-boyfriend and leaves Astrid alone in an unwelcoming world to fend for herself. Her first foster home, run by a woman named Starr and her boyfriend Ray is a small dingy trailer home in a place called Sunland-Tujunga. Starr is a god-fearing, jesus-fanatic Christian who, ironically, enjoys showing off her body and coming off to others as "highly sexual." Along with Astrid, there is Starr's real son, Davey who is a kid-genious, Starr's rebellious daughter, Carolee who eventually runs away, plus two other foster kids, Owen and Peter. Astrid's experience here is a string of discoveries that result in conflict. Astrid rebels against Starr by having a secret love affair with Ray. She is only in 8th grade at that time. Without her mother, Astrid is desperate for someone to love and look up to and concedes with Ray. Astrid describes Ray as "solid." He was someone who "wouldn't let [her] drift away. Talking to [her], telling [her] nobody was going to hurt [her]"(59). He was Astrid's newly discovered support. However, with this new discovery of exhilarating passion and secret power over Starr, came consequences. As Starr slowly discovers that Ray and Astrid have been sleeping together, she cannot control her emotions and becomes an alcoholic. This impairs her mind and ultimately, during a fight with Ray, ends up shooting Astrid in the shoulder and hip. Although Astrid gets heavily injured, she never regrets loving Ray and realizes for the first time in her life that her mother's belief that love is non-exisitant is wrong.