White Oleander

June 21, 2014 - 1:52pm - by admin

I first read the book when I was seventeen.

I found it in Bison Books which is in a different, not as good, location now.

The old location had an upstairs mezzanine level with this neat little alcove area where, as it turns out, I would eventually discover some of the most important books in my life.

It was air-conditioned and I was a teenager with a lot of time to kill and at the time my mum and I weren't getting along, and she would make me leave the house at 8am regardless of whether or not I had somewhere to go.

So I went to the bookstore.

That summer I reread the book at least a dozen times. I think I identified with the girl in the novel who didn't know who she was just yet.

Astrid was lost, and to a large extent that summer I felt lost.

I drifted around from place to place during the day between the two jobs that I worked, trying to avoid the two toxic relationships in my life: my boyfriend at the time, and my mother.

Things changed, of course.

That relationship ended, and I somehow managed to mend my broken relationship with my mother, and different books came to live in the large purses that I used to carry around before everyone got smartphones.

Watching the film now feels familiar.

It reminds me of that girl that I used to be, and that summer

and how we're always, still, a little bit lost.