The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Rootless
Author: Krystle Zara Appiah
Published: March 2023
Genre: Literary
Themes: Family, Relationships

One sentence summary: Efe and Sam were meant to be together, they just were never there at the right time.

One sentence review: A book that has truly broken me but I couldn’t recommend more, just stunning.

Review:

I don’t know how to even begin describing this book. I was utterly absorbed. I was obsessed. I am still scarred from it.

Efe and Sam were meant to be together, they just were never there at the right time. So when their time comes, it’s perfect until it’s not. Sam wants a family and Efe doesn’t want to lose herself to motherhood.

This has easily jumped into my favourites of all time. But also onto a list of books that utterly broke me. I sobbed and snotted through the ending, I loved it. I listened on audio and let me tell you that ending had me shouting some things..

Multiple points of views and converging timelines are some of favourite story telling devices and it worked so beautifully here. It creates pace, suspicions arise and history is filled in. I was hooked early on.

A big part of why this spoke to me is Efe’s concerns for motherhood. I don’t feel like it’s written about often enough – we have those wanting children and we have those that have made the decision not to but what about the couples mismatched? I thought it was so well explored, written delicately and with dignity.

I read this in the run up to Half Lives releasing later this year (Appiah’s next release) and I’m both beyond exciting to be in her writing again and equally not sure I’m emotionally ready. Or in fact ready to be hurt again.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops and my work while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here or on audio with Libro.fm here.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, we have a cosy community over on substack coming on 01/06 and we’d love to have you with us. You can also find more content on my Instagram here.

And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 25/05/2026