a root bound plant needs space to grow

by Stacey Zhu

In this deeply intimate collection, Stacey Zhu combs through the clues left behind by romance, lust, family, and melancholia to answer a difficult but human question — what is love? What she finds in a root bound plant needs space to grow distinctly captures the paradoxes of love and acceptance in human life, and in our reading, we are forced to reckon with our own relationships, decisions, and desires.

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Publication Date: September 5th, 2025
Book Size: 4.5 × 6.5 inches
Pages: 96
Format: Perfect bound softcover
ISBN: 978-1-956636-54-3

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***A Publisher’s Weekly Fall 2025 Highlight Book***

Praise for a root bound plant needs space to grow:

"Earnest, intense, and unforgettable. a root bound plant needs space to grow is a perfect distillation of the anguish and ecstasy of love in your early 20s, with all its vivid heartbreak, longing, and hope.”

—Madeleine Jubilee Saito, poetry cartoonist and author of You Are a Sacred Place: Visual Poems for Living in Climate Crisis