Forever, Interrupted 
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Me and my husband have started a tradition of going to a book store at the end of December and choosing out a new book to kick off the year reading. I  didn't know what I was in the mood for as I browsed the many, many, many shelves of Barnes&Noble so instead I chose to buy a book by my favourite author that I had yet to read. Forever, Interrupted tells the story of a newly married couple, Ben and Elsie, who tragically get torn apart after Ben dies in a bicycle accident. Elsie, the now widow, has to come to terms with losing the love of her life and developing a relationship with the mother-in-law she had yet to meet. In true TJR fashion, this is a beautiful portrait of a female friendship.

The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness
by Amanda Bennett and Lori Schiller ($6.99)
At seventeen Lori Schiller was the perfect child-the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia. She began an ordeal of hospitalisations, halfway houses, relapses, more suicide attempts, and constant, withering despair. But against all odds, she survived. The cover of this non-fiction initially drew me in but the synopsis was too interesting to pass up.

The Portable Veblen 
by Elizabeth McKenzie (50¢)
This is marketed as an unforgettable look at the way we live now. A young couple on the brink of marriage—the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist—find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel. This, again, was a cover buy at a little library sale section but I'm very interested after seeing the many positive things written about it online.

This is a prequel to one of my favourite witchy books Practical Magic (you may know it mostly as the movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman). This is about everyone's favourite characters, the Aunts, and their experience carrying around the curse of love as teenagers in bustling New York. I'm so excited to read this. I'm imagining that it's going to a strange mix of Practical Magic and Daisy Jones & The Six. Speaking of...

Daisy Jones & The Six
by Taylor Jenkins Reid ($1)
I've gone on and on about this book for almost a year now, so I won't bore you. Click HERE to read my full fangirling review. I had been on the hunt to buy this used, and was so happy to find it at my favourite library book store.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
by Gail Honeyman ($1)
This is about a woman who struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But after a chance encounter with a stranger and a man at work forms a friendship with her, she begins to question whether life would be more worth living with a shake up. I adore this book and already owned it in paperback but it was rather roughly used so I couldn't pass up this new-looking hardback for $1.
Beloved

We're all guilty of spending a little too much on Amazon, especially when we're a part of Prime. It's a right of passage to grimace each month when you look at your order history and realise that most of the things weren't actually that necessary. I thought it'd be a fun post to share with you my recent purchases and semi shame myself. This is a 'haul' of the things I've bought from Amazon over the past 8 weeks, enjoy!


For past few years I've been trying to dabble in the world of watercolour painting, but it's definitely a wormhole with far too many options on Amazon. I truly didn't know where to start and my wallet was reluctant to take a hit for a hobby that I might not stick with. However, it's been on my mind for so long that I just took the plunge with some birthday money that's been put aside. Have I yet to have a proper play with my pocketbook Winsor & Newton? No, no I have not. Because I'm afraid to mess it up. Look at the reds! So messy. Yup, so much logic. But I went with this brand as it had the best reviews for the midway price point. The palette itself is incredibly well made and the colours, though boring, all seem great for their intended use. I'm also very appreciative of the colour guide you receive, as pictured below. All in all, I'm very happy with this purchase and will definitely play around with it soon. I'll probably upload my results (failure or not) on my Instagram RootingBranches.


In a similar theme to the paints, I bought yarn. And no, not for my cats, which would probably be your first guess. I'm an old soul and really want to get into either knitting or crochet, not sure which yet as I haven't fully learnt the difference. My goal is to both make adorable hats and strengthen my wrists that are shockingly weak due to Fibromyalgia. Wish me luck! This mustard colour was a must.


A phone tripod? Okay, I was sucked into a daily deal. But in my defence, I have wanted something like this for a while now to make it easier to take family photos, especially with the cats. This UBeesize tripod (usually priced at $24.99 but I nabbed it for $12.99) fits the bill perfectly. It's sturdy, easy to use, and has a bluetooth remote that hasn't glitched once - even the process of syncing it with my phone was a breeze. So though unnecessary, a very fun product that will make aspects of my life easier.


The thought of cutting my cats nails fills me with the kind of fear that rivals that of tripping as you try to sleep. For months I've been putting it off, but my female cat's paws were having non of it. As both my American cats are indoor only, their side claws don't get filed as they should, so we have to take it into our own hands.. doom, doom I say. We basically bought the best reviewed nail clippers on the market that weren't huge or stupidly priced. Pet Republique has a good reputation and the thousand positive reviews swayed us to go with them. They work perfectly, and though the process is still mighty terrifying, it's not difficult in the slightest and my cat isn't even bothered.


Time for the most exciting purchase... deodorant! Who doesn't love a good deodorant recommendation? I'm actually seriously asking this. It took me years to find a product that ticked all the boxes. I didn't want anything perfumed, something that would keep my underarms dry without powder residue, and most importantly, something that worked without me having to reapply multiple times a day. Mitchum is that brand for me. The Amazon duo pack is a much better deal than buying from a drugstore, working out at only $2.50 a piece. Forever repurchasing. (My husband has also tried the 'sport' variety and liked it.)

It's no secret that I love a good library sale. In the States it's common for libraries to have little book stores selling used books for anywhere between 50c and $5. This is now my and my husband's favourite hobby, because we're THAT cool. Having recently purchased a good pile of books for a grand total of $5, I thought it'd be fun to share my finds.


The Woman In The Window
by A.J Finn
Soon to be adapted into a movie starring Amy Adams, this domestic thriller has quickly become the new Gone Girl. Telling the story of a woman who spends her days at home, alone, drinking wine and spying on the neighbours. When she sees something that she shouldn't of, her world takes a nose-dive into madness. Who can she trust, when even her own memory seems shifty. I'm not huge on these types of thrillers as more often than nought, they're over hyped. But I couldn't pass it up for $1. Hopefully it'll be a surprising success..? *Spoiler: I read this and hated it. Yaaaaay.*


Lincoln in the Bardo 
by George Saunders
President Abraham Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son Willie passes away after an illness. Not yet realising that he's dead, his soul is stuck in a transitional phase along with the other ghosts who populate the cemetery. As it's unwise for a child to stay in the transitional realm for long, some of the ghosts attempt to usher Willy into the next realm. But Willie is determined to stay and wait for his father, so the ghosts must concoct a plan to convince him to move on. This is a book that I've heard a lot about (both good and terrible) so my curiosity got peaked. The audiobook has won a lot of awards, partly as it has 166 narrators. Pure insanity.


Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel 
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? I straight up copied that synopsis from Goodreads, as I have no idea what this book is about. I mainly picked it up as it sounded interesting, and I've seen so many people hype it up on Bookstagram.


Before The Fall
by Noah Hawley 
On a foggy summer night, eleven people--ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter--depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. Was it by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work? I mainly picked this up due to Kristin Hannah having recommending it during a Bookbub interview. The premise is very interesting so I'm even more excited to give this a read.


Trapeze
by Simon Mawer
Barely out of school and doing her bit for the British war effort, Marian Sutro has one quality that makes her stand out—she is a native French speaker. It is this that attracts the attention of the SOE, the Special Operations Executive, which trains agents to operate in occupied Europe. Drawn into this strange, secret world at the age of nineteen, she finds herself undergoing commando training, attending a “school for spies,” and ultimately, one autumn night, parachuting into France from an RAF bomber to join the WORDSMITH resistance network. I enjoy a WWII novel and espionage is a genre I rarely ever pick up, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the two combine for this novel.


The House Between Tides
by Sarah Maine 
This follows the story of a woman who discovers the century-old remains of a murder victim on her family’s Scottish estate, plunging her into an investigation of its mysterious former occupants. That is everything I know about this novel as I feel like these type of 'thrillers' are more enjoyable if you go into them blind. But who doesn't love a mystery story about a murder? October is right around the corner, after all.


A Fall of Marigolds
by Susan Meissner
September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. What she learns could devastate her—or free her.
September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming speciality fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers...the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. But a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf may open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life. This is another synopsis I completely copy and pasted. I couldn't fathom how to put that description into my own words. This book sounds beautiful and the positive reviews only add to my excitement of picking this up.


The Long Song
by Andrea Levy
Told through the voice of a woman who worked as a slave through the bloody Baptist War and the violent and chaotic end of slavery, this fictionalised novel will undoubtedly lead to a broken heart. I don't think I have ever read a book set in Jamaica so that's also exciting.