I really enjoyed this book. The relationships were complex and deep and evolved really well. I think it addressed women not wanting children really well, and how many are still pushed into it because it’s what society expects. It was so well written and moving.

Rootless is a powerful read, a tale of love, loss, motherhood, identity and pain.

Efe is trying to work out who she is and what she wants in life. She is trying to please her family but also be herself.

The story starts in the middle, goes back to the beginning and then moves to the end. The beginning is maybe a little drawn out, learning Efe’s history is detail. The second half is gripping however, we move closer to the main event, only to find the main event is not what we were led to believe! Clearly written to lead you towards and ending you were not expecting.

Not for the faint hearted, this book will pull on all your emotions. I veered from liking to hating Sam on more than one occasion. The book is raw and real and talks about the taboo subject of women who struggle with motherhood.

Krystle Zara Appiah, what have you done to me?!

Poignant and heart-thumpingly wonderful. I have so much love for this. What a tender debut.
#StillRecovering

Rootless follows Sam and Efe, teenage sweethearts who were destined to be together. They seem like a perfect couple, but when Efe becomes unexpectedly pregnant, they find themselves in a heartbreaking and difficult predicament; Sam dreams of being a father whilst Efe feels trapped and as if her world is crumbling around her. And so, Rootless unravels the truths of parenthood, explores regret and abandonment and is ultimately a story about love, sacrifice and heartbreak.

This was sooo good. The characters were so well written and I felt like I was right there with them through the ups and downs of their stories. The writing style was so palatable and I didn’t want to put it down. It could’ve become cliche, dramatised and unrelatable, but instead it was real, raw, honest and captivating.

I liked the passage of time and that with each chapter we witnessed the growth and development of the characters. We learnt and experienced just enough before moving to the next period of time and the flow of the story was perfectly executed. The ending, whilst Im not sure it was necessary, was heartbreaking and I really enjoyed the journey.

So, what a debut! It had everything - moments of joy and happiness as well as devastation and despair.

Get your hands on this one, you won’t regret it!

Thank you to Krystle Zara Appiah, Harper Collins UK and Netgalley for the e-ARC

This book completely blew me away and was one of my favourite reads of 2022. Efe and Sam meet at a young age and seem destined to be together. We catch up with them every few years and see the evolution of their friendship into a relationship and eventually marriage. Once married, we get an exploration of just how differently people view and interpret scenarios and situations. We see both Sam and Efe's perspectives from the same situations and Krystle Zara Appiah does a wonderful job of showing how a lack of communication and being unwilling to see a situation for what it is can lead to a marriage in crisis.

The book deals with many themes, including parenthood, generational trauma, and the expectations of motherhood on women in modern society. I'd definitely recommend this book and I was left still thinking about the book and the ending weeks later.

I sat in my bed after finishing this book with tears falling down my cheeks and a sense of profound loss.
Rootless is like watching a car crash in slow motion. We know what Efe wants and needs and so does she but Sam seems convinced that she will change her mind and become someone she’s not.
The book begins with Efe having abandoned Sam and Liv but then moves to 20 years ‘before’ when she and Sam are teenagers and she has recently been sent to live in England from Ghana with her sister. One of the things I loved most about this novel was that England was never seen as an upgrade from Ghana. There is no white saviour ‘rescued by the developed world’ narrative here and you can feel Eve’s relief when she finally goes home to visit and feels the stress melting away as she relaxes into the familiar. When Efe starts dating Sam and takes him home with her to family events he also seems to slot right in and view the country as a second home. London is also presented fairly. The weather isn’t great, lifts in blocks of flats never work but you can get a good free education and the arts and cultural opportunities in the city abound.
I hope Krystle Appiah isn’t writing from experience when she captures Efe’s seemingly lifelong battle with depression but I fear she may be. Written so honestly, so brutally, so accurately but also so acceptingly. At times the novel actually made me feel incredibly down and hopeless as the author pulls no punches with descriptions of self harm in which she completely, utterly ‘nails’ it when Efe describes the wonderful calm that comes over a frantically screaming brain when blade hits skin. More than once I had to put my Kindle down and take some deep breaths before continuing.
Having identified with Efe so much over the years of the narrative, what happens after Liv is born was very challenging for me. I have suffered with postnatal depression and struggled to bond with my child in the early months but I have no idea and just cannot put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t want children and can do what Efe does when Liv is 4 years old. Despite feeling repelled from her choices in this part of the novel I still love Efe so much and so want her and Sam to be the perfect relationship that Sam thinks is possible.
I struggled quite a bit with Sam’s character as his lack of awareness of how badly a pregnancy will mess with Efe’s mental health and his lack of understanding at what life is like taking care of a baby and an elderly relative made me want to shake him.
The book gathered pace as it reached its climax and when I realised that the countdown to ‘before’ may not be counting down to Efe leaving the house after all, my blood ran cold.
I’m loving all the fabulous books coming out of Africa or written by African-British people and this story stands up effortlessly with other similar books. A definite must read!

Absolutely loved reading “Rootless” by Krystle Zara Appiah just a heads up brace yourself for the very sad ending.

A very relatable read in terms of the fact that it is a British-Ghanaian novel; having to picture both countries which I am relatively familiar with.

Story starts of beautiful; based on two sisters (Efe & Serwaa) who are sent to the UK (from Ghana) to attend school. Serwaa seems to be settling in quite well; friendship, academics, has a smooth love life, marries and finally settles in Ghana.

Efe on the other hand is not finding school easy at all, she is failing in her course and in the long run has to drop out. She decides to explore her interest in the creative space, where she meets the love of her life (Brian). Turns out Brian is not the love of her life after all and they end up splitting. She falls in love with Sam (her bestfriend). Fastforward, they get married and this is when the story unfolds for me.

Efe is a corporate woman, absolutely in love with Sam however she is not ready to have kids now (unlike Sam who just can’t wait to start a family on his own). Things don’t always go as planned; Efe ends up being pregnant and she is not happy about it (she loves kids it was just not the right time for her). She has a baby girl, Olivia (Liv). Efe gets depressed to the point Due to her current state she spontaneously decides to leave the UK to Ghana without Sam’s knowledge. I know it sounds a bit harsh right? She leaves her daughter in UK, however Efe was losing herself in the process.

She “finds” herself during her time in Ghana and is very happy. However “something” happens after this, will Efe finally go back to the UK or will Sam come looking for her? Read Rootless to find out how this beautiful story unfolds.

Rootless officially comes out on the 16th of March 2023, make sure to grab a copy when it is out.

Might sound selfish, but I love the fact that Efe got to a point where she realized her happiness also matters.

When Efe and Sam meet as teenagers, it seems like destiny. Sam was stable, reliable, strong - and perfect for Efe who needed someone to help her hold up the weight being forced upon her by her parents since she moved from Ghana to the UK to live with her aunt. They were a team - them against the world.

But when an unplanned pregnancy occurs, they find themselves on opposing sides for the first time.

Now years later, even more pressure starts to crack at the foundations they've been building together. Efe disappears, leaving her husband and daughter in London while she boards a plane. Sam doesn't know if she's running away from their life or towards something else. But now, they need to figure out if the roots they've laid down are holding them up, or holding them back before it's too late.

"I can love her and still want something more for my life. Love and regret aren't mutually exclusive. I just - I couldn't go back to the beginning. I couldn't let myself get stuck again."

A striking story about a family in crisis, Rootless is a love story that dares to continue after the Happily Ever After. It makes authentic observations about identity - how it changes, how it is lost and found throughout our lives and the many different aspects that make us who we are.

Take Efe, who is grieving for the life she imagined for herself and feels like she has no identity outside of Wife and Mother, leaving no room for her. I felt her sadness and her loss deeply, and even when she made devastating choices, she was so very human. Sam was the other side of a coin, someone who cared and loved deeply, but couldn't or wouldn't see the cracks appearing in his picture-perfect life until it was too late.

I adored that Efe was written in such an honest, unapologetic way. She spoke candidly about the unwritten expectations and pressures that come with motherhood and womanhood and fought for herself. I also loved the way she never for a moment watered down her heritage; the story contained Ghanaian words and dialect, traditions and locations that even if you don't speak the language, you'll be able to understand contextually due to the superb writing.

The lives of our couple is carefully woven together across the pages - showing us their formative years, the good and bad, allowing us to see their relationship grow and change with them as the years go by. We learn about them as people, and as a couple - and see where the lines blur. The time flows seamlessly from one moment to another, each short chapter giving us just enough time before moving on in a way that's easy to follow and slowly leads us back to the fateful moment that will decide the course of the rest of their lives. The final chapter left me crying bittersweet tears, and while I can't say I particularly liked the ending, the journey there was extraordinary.

This prise is quiet, but bold - instead of dramatic reveals and revelations, it pulls out all the pain and confusion that is so very real to life to create an emotive and refreshingly genuine story that feels like it could've happened to someone to love. This personal tone made the highs and lows even more impactful so be ready for some tears.

We explore parenthood, heritage, relationships, careers, passions, belonging - all the things that affect our sense of identity. Anybody who has even felt like they don't really know themselves will find catharsis and connection with the central themes of this emotive novel.

Rootless is a poetic, powerful debut full of heart that needs to be on your reading list for 2023.

"People - even the ones who love you - can be a weight around your neck. You just have to choose which weights you want to carry."

I have mixed feelings about this book. Initially, I really enjoyed this. The structure from past to present works very well as we get to know Efe and Sam better and understand where they are coming from. I recognise a lot of Efe's situation as a working mom with all family living elsewhere. However, her drastic decisions and the way she behaved afterwards shocked me. I mean it’s obvious she has depression and didn't even want to be a mother in the first place…but her selfishness really frustrated me.
Overall, I’m glad I read this book and look forward to Appiah’s future work.

This book is a standout retelling of a love story that would etch itself into your heart and brain for many many years to come. This love story will have you melting and rooting for love in all ways. I care about this book because of how these fantastic characters interacted with what made them who they were. They felt so real in a way I haven’t felt about characters in a long time (if ever). You can’t help but sympathise with their struggles, and even in their deepest mishaps, you yearn to soothe them. As a reader, I found myself battling the same mixed feelings the characters faced because of how invested I got.

Efe and Sam are childhood friends who grow up together to eventually find love. With this love comes growing, adjusting, and redefining what it means to love and to be loved. It is a powerful retelling of how love can conquer all but also how we use love to conquer one another. Efe is well written in that she captures many concerns of daughters of the diaspora living in the west trying to find themselves in a not-so-clear-cut world while adjusting to her potential needs as opposed to the needs of others and what’s expected of her. The author's voice is clear in her telling of Sam and Efe’s story, giving us an immersive plot that has an appealing pace. Efe’s concerns felt honest and tangible, should she give herself time to figure things out or should she do what’s expected of her but may not inspire her? How will marriage look like for her? Will love be enough? Where will their collective take them? And most importantly, will they find love in one another?

I am thoroughly impressed with how much this book captivated me from the start, I couldn’t put it down and I found myself rushing back to it every time I did. I thought the chapter transitions would throw me off at first, but it works really well with this story, maybe it was the platform I was reading on. The pacing is on point and distinctively written to take you out of time without you realising how fast you’re going through the contents. Personally, I got goosebumps from seeing Twi being incorporated seamlessly into the dialogue in the most elegant and realistic way I’ve read in a book (granted I’ve read a few books with Twi blended into the dialogue). It made me want to go and have many rereads, and so proud to see elements of Ghanaian culture and language. I have so many feelings and thoughts to still process for this book, and that’s a powerful thing. You are left thinking about your humanity.
It is an exceptional and painfully beautiful story. I’ll be thinking of this for years to come and I see this becoming a classic real soon.


Dear Krystle Zara Appiah, you've got yourself a big fan!

This book is told mostly in a dual narrative which I think worked really well, but at times I felt that the characters could have been developed with a bit more depth because of this I got bored with the story in the second quarter wondering where this was going and then suddenly exactly half way the story picked up.
Although this is a love story, the essence of it is about mothers and their children - the different roles they play in different families, the matriarch, the loving one and the one who abandons.

Efe feels out of sorts and out of place throughout the whole story- she doesn't belong anywhere, not in England and neither in Ghana, she doesn't have a great relationship with her mother and unfortunately her past traumatic incident isn't well explored in the story and its clear she is still traumatised by it,. At one point she loses her voice in her relationship and here I felt sorry for her. She feels Sam is putting pressure on her even though it goes against everything she wants for herself.

The relationship between Sam and Efe is very sweet to start with, they are overcome by mundane life and then Efe makes a decision which cuts Sam deep into his core, Sam who was abandoned by his mother, is now hurt by Efe in almost the same way. the similarities were not lost on me here and this just made me like Sam more. He is left to pick up the pieces of his shattered life once again, Where is Efe and can he forgive her?

The last quarter dragged on for me, I was eager to know how this story finished and I very nearly DNF it.

For me this story is a 3.5 stars.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

When Efe and Sam meet in 1990s London, Efe is burdened by the expectations of her parents, who sent her to London from Ghana in hopes of a better future, while Sam is consumed by his studies in pursuit of a career in law. They come and go from each other, in ebbs and flows, but the spark of friendship eventually blossoms into love, and love leads to marriage. Sam and Efe’s love is a classic case of opposites attract; Sam is a planner, striving with a quiet confidence to achieve the stable, structured life he has envisioned. Efe, uprooted as a young girl, is more instinctive, more tentative, striving to find her place and path, but throwing herself passionately into something once she knows it’s for her. Yet they do fall into a deep and strong love until Efe becomes pregnant, which is when their differences are finally put to the test. Sam is so blinded by his vision of the life he wants that he can’t see the woman struggling in front of him.

Appiah’s characters are so well developed; from our main couple to their family and friends, in particular the vibrant and bustling community life in Ghana. In Sam and Efe she has breathed such life into two great, very different characters that we come to know, and empathise with, so deeply; each carrying forward their own troubles and traumas from childhood into adulthood.

Set between London and Ghana, Rootless is a compulsive and heart wrenching read, exploring themes of self-discovery, identity and belonging; of being true to ourselves or meeting the expectations of others, and the compromises we make in relationships that we can or can’t survive; of the struggles and sacrifices of motherhood; of what happens when someone is pushed down a path they haven’t chosen; of broken families, and the effect our learned experience of family can have on how we parent; and of how others, be it partners, family or cultural community, can seek to influence and decide our lives for us. There are a lot of darker topics and some triggering themes explored, but they only serve to support what is ultimately such a beautifully written deep dive into some of the most essential and deeply human struggles of what it is to love and what it is to be a parent, a mother in particular.

The novel is formatted in such a way as to create tension and momentum, opening with a pivotal moment before going back in time to explore how things came to this point. The chapters are titled in a countdown fashion - six months before, four months before etc. - leading us dynamically towards some climatic event; what that event will be remains a mystery until the very last moment, with so many potential outcomes based on how the story is unfolding. There is a simplicity and authenticity to the writing style that allows the passion, vulnerability, frustration and heartache of its characters to emanate from the pages, coupled with a plot pace that keeps us gripped and invested until the end.

I absolutely loved this book. This is a story, filled with vibrant characters, that will capture and squeeze your heart at every page, and a stunning debut no less.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

This book lingered with me for days and days after I turned the last page.
From the wonderful descriptions of Ghanian life and culture to the sensitively described postnatal depression suffered by Efe and the beautiful relationship between her and Sam, every single character is a joy to get to know and every single page pulls you further into their lives.

Wonderful writing and characters that resonate. This book will stay with me for a long time. Can’t say much without spoilers but didn’t quite go how I thought it would. Highly recommend!

an unbelievable debut. A layered and intricate story of love, loss, family, parenting, mistakes and growing up. I didn't know what to expect when I started reading but I was completely blown away. The author took a lot of time, attention and patience to craft the characters and their stories and as a reader, I am grateful for it and can't wait for this to end up on ever single best of 2023 list!

Gifted an ARC through NetGalley.

What an amazing read. Wow. The entire story, how it's told, the characters you invest in? Krystle did an outstanding job giving us this masterpiece as her debut.

Told between multiple characters POV it never really gets tiring or too hard to follow at any point. I really understood Efe and love how Krystle brought a genuine, human character to life.

All in all? Absolutely read it. If you're looking for a story that stays with you, this is the one.

An incredibly powerful début novel, with an unexpected turn of what the book was leading to. The author is up there as highly rated and look forward to reading more of her work.

I feel like it’s hard to reconcile the fact that love and regret can exist in the same space. This book makes that so easy to digest in the best way possible.
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Rootless, Krystle Zara Appiah’s debut (coming March 2023!!) is an epic story following Efe and Sam, as they navigate what starts out as a wonderful will they- won’t they romance and evolves into a crumbling marriage. It’s a story that spans decades from when the pair first encounter each other up until when they’re struggling to keep their home together.
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First of all, ugh. Second of all, this was so excellent. As a Ghanaian-Brit (?), this book is the representation I’ve been on my knees begging for for years. Moving from Ghana to the UK at 16 and dealing with all sorts of expectations, Efe is as complicated as she is real. She deals with everything; from parental pressure to wondering whether motherhood is meant for her. And a lot of what she goes through prompts the reader to confront the age old question of whether in life we really do have choices and if we do, can we face the consequences of them? At its heart, this is a story about family, motherhood, choices and the self. Can you and do you really put yourself first? And if you do, what does that mean for you and those around you?
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It is brilliantly written, relatable and smart. I finished it under a day. I was greatly reminded of His Only Wife, which we’ve spoken about on here so if you liked that, man, you’ll love this. It’s different from that still, in that it flits between the UK and Ghana which is where the representation for me comes in.
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This is a triumph. Like, seriously. Get it.

"Marriage is like a groundnut. You have to crack them to see what is inside." - Ghanaian proverb

First I would like to say thank you to HarperCollins UK for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Have you ever wondered about that moment in a relationship where one person resents the other because of the sacrifices they had to make? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it lead you to do? Rootless answers these questions.

This book blew me away. I literally read it with one hand over my mouth the entire time. I was speeding through it, rushing to find out what happened next after every line. This is the kind of book that leaves you in a daze thinking about it long after you're done reading.

It is hard to write complicated and complex main characters, but Krystle does it in the best possible way. The book tackles depression, motherhood, young love, parental pressure, tradition, gender roles and so much more but it doesn't feel overwhelming. The writing was sharp and beautifully crafted. Descriptions that are so gorgeous you want to highlight each line to hold on to them a little longer.

As a reader, it felt easy to empathize with both Sam and Efe's experiences because Appiah wrote them so tangibly. She reminds you that there really are two sides to every story. We spend a lot of time trying to interpret people’s actions and I think it is a beautiful lesson on the importance of finding your voice.

Thank you for my copy of this book to read and review.

One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I enjoyed the countdown to ‘before’…it kept me guessing right til the end. I liked the parts of the story set in Ghana with the descriptions of the surroundings, food and family life.

A real deep, emotional story. I have already recommended this to anyone that will listen.