Rootbound: Rewilding a Life

by Alice Vincent

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About this book

When she was a girl, Alice Vincent loved her grandfather's garden - the freedom, the calm, the beauty of it. Twenty years later, living in a tiny flat in South London, that childhood in the garden feels like a dream.

When she suddenly finds herself uprooted, heartbroken, living out of a suitcase and yearning for the comfort of home, Alice starts to plant seeds. She nurtures pot plants and vines on windowsills and draining boards, filling her new space with green, and with each unfurling petal and budding leaf, she begins to come back to life.

Mixing memoir, botanical history and biography, Rootbound examines how bringing a little bit of the outside in can help us find our feet in a world spinning far too fast.

“London is my most compelling lover; I am hooked on it, for all its mistreatment. Expensive and demanding and, if you know where to look, beautiful.”

Count Your Coffees

When the author sent me a copy of this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. Sure, we shared a love of plants, but was this really a book on plants or was it a cleverly disguised autobiography? And perhaps most importantly, was this able to get me out of a long reading slump?

The book turned out to be all of these things: an autobiographical tale, filled to the rim with plant facts and botanical history, set in a world that is at times all too familiar and recognizable.

That being said, allow me to address the one small issue that I have with this book: sometimes, it is all of those things. I found myself wanting more of the compelling adventures of botanical heroines throughout history, more plant facts and tidbits, but also more details of this emotional journey. I found myself with a greed the book couldn't always satisfy.

I still love this book however, and it has its' own place of honor in the main living area, amongst the plants. It is such a relatable story, addressing issues and emotions we all have experienced (and are still experiencing). Emotions that can be healed by nature, whether it is through growing plants yourself, or simply going out into the wild. A notion we have all come to appreciate since the Covid pandemic.

A fun little afterthought: this story is far from finished, and as I follow the author on her socials, I have witnessed the next chapters. I'm not one for spoiler, so why not read the book first and then find out how it continued...

Buy this book: https://amzn.to/3VJG7NR

This site earns a small commission fee if you buy using any of the commercial links. This will not cost you anything extra, but helps me invest in the content I offer you free of charge. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your patronage, it makes all the difference!