White Oleander By Janet Fitch

I started out liking this book a lot. It was the heart breaking story of a young woman, Astrid, who grows up with a free spirited poet mother. Her mother kills an ex lover and goes to prison leaving Astrid to struggle through a number of foster families in search of  a normal family to love. Many things happen along the way -- she first lives with a born again woman "Starr" and has an affair with her boy friend and "Starr" shoots her in anger, then she lives with Marvel and her family with 2 kids whom she is the live in nanny, but finds an interesting woman, Olivia, next door whom Marvel does not approve of. Then she lives with a woman who padlocks the fridge and starves the girls living there. Then she moves in with Ron and Claire who give her love and attention, but that ends with Claire's suicide...by this time I am in the "enough already" mode and had to skim very lightly the rest of the book. Janet is a good writer but does not know when to quit.