Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of Crossings by Alex Landragin.

This novel can be read 2 different ways- straight through like normal, or in the "Baroness Sequence" which bounces around, which I chose. If you read it like normal, you encounter 3 separate short stories, while the Baroness Sequence flowed everything together, which I highly recommend.

I enjoyed Crossings and the story that Landragin created. Focusing on two central characters who cross into other bodies, this novel spans over a hundred years, travels the world, and weaves their stories together. I loved the different time periods and the flashbacks, and the concept of this story- it was unique and creative.

I did feel as the book went on that it was lagging a bit with too many details and back stories as it went on. The first half and the second half felt like they'd been written slightly different, with less action and more "filler." I also had issues with the links in the ARC not leading to the right place so I had to figure out how to read the last half on my own, which was frustrating and hopefully has been fixed.

Truly unique storytelling. Planning to read it a second time using the alternate suggested method to see how it all comes together that way.

I want to thank Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Something I don’t talk about a lot on this blog is how much I love weird books. I should probably explain that when I say “weird”, I typically mean books that have an interesting or not-often-used format. Think mixed-media or books within books. So, when I came across Crossings on Netgalley and found that there was more than one way to read the story, I was instantly intrigued!

It’s the tale of two people who’s lives revolve around one another in the strangest of ways. We are told three separate tales about three different people that, in the end, are completely intertwined. The synopsis is necessarily vague as part of the charm of this book is discovering the connections as you read. And, as I mentioned, this book has a catch: it can be read in two different ways! It can be read in the traditional sense, from front to back. Or it can be read in what is called “the Baroness sequence”, where you jump around in the narrative.

Let me start by saying that I read this traditionally because that’s just who I am as a person. Also, I sometimes don’t trust my e-books when it comes to clicking on links that jump you around the book… it can mess with the formatting which always throws me off. Still, after I finished the book, I was instantly curious as to how the experience would differ if you read it using the Baroness sequence! Have you ever wished you could experience a book again as if for the first time? Well, in a sense, this is exactly what Crossings offers you!

Now, as to the actual story, I will say that it started off a tad slow for me. I don’t think the story truly took off until after I finished the first section, which revolves around Charles Baudelaire. The next section, however, completely sucked me in and I was fully engaged for the rest of the book. This is not a fast-paced story, but it’s so mind-boggling that you can help to devour the pages looking for answers! My favorite section has to be the last, though, where we follow the life of an extraordinary woman and start to see how all of it ties together. This is definitely a book that will keep your attention!

This is also a book that is very much a character study. You’re following these central characters through some pretty traumatic times (the second part is set during WWII, after all) and it’s so interesting to watch them navigate and process their lives. I thought the author did a spectacular job bringing these characters and, therefore, the story to life. They have so many layers, which I love, and I loved getting to live inside their heads.

Final thoughts: This is an strange little book and I absolutely love that about it! It takes a moment to get going, but, once it does, you can’t help but lose yourself in the narrative. The characters are multifaceted and the story will leave you believing in the unbelievable. If you like a mind-bending story within a story, you should give this book a try!

“Crossings” by Alex Landragin drew me in by its creativity and originality. Those same attributes (creativity and originality) are what has frustrated me as I picked up (metaphysically speaking) this book several times attempting to be drawn in to the point where when I wasn’t reading the story I was looking forward to getting back to reading the story. I regret that I was unable to do so. The story just couldn’t hold my attention. Perhaps once a year I do not complete one of the one hundred or so books that I read...and this is the one. One caveat: I am gonna keep this book in my active to-be-read pile (also metaphysical) and perhaps take a crack at finishing. It’s got a lot going for it and therefore the fault may be in my attention span (or global pandemic) (or rioters in the streets). Thanks to NetGalley for offering this book to me as an Advanced Readers Copy.

There is a tremendous amount of craft that goes into writing a book. The meticulous attention to detail necessary to build a truly engaging narrative is incredible, folding together character development and plot and research, all with an eye toward continuity and consistency. And if it all comes together just right, you get a killer story.

Now imagine doing all that while constructing things so that the book can be consumed in a different order and still tell a killer story, albeit one with a different shape.

That’s what Alex Landragin did with his debut novel “Crossings,” a marvelous puzzle box of a book that spans centuries and offers more than one way to consume its compelling story. It’s a novel in three parts, built to be read either in the standard front-to-back fashion or via an alternate to-and-fro chapter order.

Epic in scope, spanning a century and a half and featuring a cast of characters that is somehow both sprawling and small, “Crossings” is that relatively rare experiment in form that doesn’t sacrifice substance in the name of style. It’s conceptually cool, of course, but it’s also beautifully written and one hell of a riveting tale.

Our first encounter is with an unnamed bookbinder, tasked with working his particular craftsmanship on an elderly manuscript at the behest of a mysterious noblewoman; her only caveat is that he not read it. Circumstances lead to him breaking that agreement, however, wherein he learns that it is a work in three parts – but that the noblewoman has assembled her own alternate reading order, called simply “the Baroness sequence.”

The first part, titled “The Education of a Monster,” purports to be a lost work penned by the famed French poet Charles Baudelaire, a ghost story of sorts ostensibly intended for an audience of one. It’s a fantastic tale in which the literary notable discovers that his understanding of the world is far more limited than he ever could have known.

In part two – “City of Ghosts” – we meet a man in exile (modeled on Walter Benjamin) imprisoned by nocturnal terrors, only to see his nightmares assuaged by an encounter with a woman whose stories soothe him even as they draw him into a weirdly conspiratorial world revolving around a literary society and a rare manuscript – the very same manuscript that makes up Part One.

Thirdly, we have “Tales of the Albatross,” a decades-spanning look at a native of a small Pacific island whose ability to swap souls with other people (in a process from which the novel takes its name) leads her into a world of global adventure, wherein she lives multiple lifetimes – as man and woman, as poor and rich, as aristocrat and urchin – on a quest for something she lost long ago.

These pieces play off one another beautifully, standing on their own but intricately intertwined as well. That intricacy is on full display once one ventures down the road of the Baroness sequence, giving the reader a story that is no less entrancing even as they bounce around the book.

Obviously, attempting something like this is a wildly ambitious undertaking. The degree of difficulty is off the charts; just one misstep or miscalculation and the entire enterprise collapses under the weight of its own hubris. And yet, “Crossings” succeeds. This book somehow works equally well in both respects in which it can be consumed, telling similar yet distinct versions of this tale. Connections beget connections as the complexity of the web being woven expands almost exponentially. It’s a remarkable feat of literary acumen, the writerly equivalent of juggling chainsaws on a high wire. In short, it’s impressive as hell.

But while the stylistic choices need to be addressed, they aren’t the only reason to engage with this book. “Crossings” isn’t just a parlor trick. It’s a story about the nature of the soul and the strength of love, a story about stories and the power of storytelling. It’s a literary mystery and a rip-roaring adventure. It’s far more than just its device, with plenty of steak to go with the sizzle.

A big part of what makes this book work so marvelously is the verisimilitude of the period settings. Landragin is clearly a gifted researcher, having thoroughly cobbled together vividly detailed portraits of such varied spots as wartime Paris and a tiny South Pacific island; the richness practically leaps off the page. Having constructed such bounteous backgrounds, the deep-seated complexity of his characters can be fully unleashed.

And oh, what characters! Whether we’re talking about the secret life of a noted historical figure or the fully invented multi-generational journey of a body-hopping soul, every single person we meet is possessed of an engaging dimensional depth. They are full-bodied and tangible. They breathe.

If “Crossings” were nothing more than a gimmick, a literary trick, it would be damned impressive. But the fact that it is so much more – a meditation on love and identity and the power of storytelling – is what makes this book one of the most engaging and thought-provoking that I’ve read in some time.

'Crossings' by Alex Landragin: A novel you want to travel through twice (review published in Mountain Times (Boone, NC) Aug. 7, 2020)

Few bibliophiles, fiction lovers or anyone, really, interested in a good story could resist the opening line of the preface in “Crossings” (St. Martins Press), a debut novel by Alex Landragin: “I didn’t write this book. I stole it.”

As a reader and critic, I’m happy Landragin wrote this line. It wasn’t in an early draft of the book’s beginning — which can you view for yourself  at http://www.alexlandragin.com/excerpt.html — but it sets up an interconnected series of stories that comprise one of the most enjoyable, intriguing and distracting reads from this summer of great pandemic.

To sum, it’s the book you need today. But under Landragin’s pen, it’s also the book you’ll need tomorrow because the author has done something wonderful and wicked within its pages. “Crossings” isn’t one stolen book. It’s two.

As the story goes, Paris is on the edge of the Nazi occupation when a German-Jewish bookbinder is given a manuscript, “Crossings,” to bind but not to read. As it comes into his permanent, if dubious, possession following the death of the owner, the Parisian does read the book and finds it’s composed of three successively more unusual narratives.

The first is a ghost story written by a minor poet for an illiterate girl. The second is a romance centering on a man whose recurring and increasingly vocal middle-of-the-night nightmares are cured through the love of a storyteller. The third is a memoir from a woman who claims, and details, a life that has spanned seven generations.

The wonderful part is that the stories are visibly interconnected and the novel can be read straight through quite enjoyably.

But the wicked part is that this is not the way the author meant it to be read. Through following the novel’s opening direction, the reader is invited to consume “Crossings” in the “Baroness sequence” — so named for the original owner who listed in a note the alternate reading order. In that world, the novel begins on page 150, and from there you are directed to the next section in a remarkable order of reading that uncovers the three narratives’ interconnections more fully than the accustomed linear path. In this way, the novel is viewed more as chapters than a book of stories — and it works.

Not every reader has the desire to read a novel straight-through twice, but you’ll want to do so with “Crossings.” And when you do, you'll ask, how to begin? Which way to go?

That’s up to you.

Whichever path you start on, you’ll finish at the end with a group of seemingly contrasting characters clamoring for empathy, love and longing.

In a series of stories that embrace one another like no other novel out this season, that is both just enough, and more than we could ask for.

Alex Landragin's complex debut novel, Crossings is a fantastic story and an engaging read. Part mystery, part romance, part historical drama, it's a heck of a ride.

The book can be read in two ways, straight through chronologically, or in "The Baroness Sequence" which follows two body-hopping souls as they keep crossing, passing, and missing each other through many eras. This sequence involves much spiritual and religious thought at the beginning - where Crossing, essentially a trading of souls, is taught as a spiritual practice, Once a Crossing has been made, it is required that a return Crossing follow. The reasons for that requirement become evident in the Baroness Sequence, in which a crossing with a botched return sends two lovers on a centuries long journey to repair the wrong. Due to the circumstances of the spoiled Crossing, one lover doesn't remember his past; his partner does, and sets herself as his guardian and follows him through the ages.

Landragin does a fine job of setting the scenes in drastically different times and places. From a
Acidic island paradise to World War Two Paris on the brink of German invasion, he captures times and places extraordinarily well. This book was a lot of fun to read - thrilling and adventurous on the one hand, yet thoughtful about the more esoteric aspects of human interaction on the other. Quite an original and though-provoking read. Someday soon, I'll go back and read it straight through in order.i wonder what differences that approach will reveal?

Crossings by Alex Landragin is an interesting and totally creative novel in which even describing the setting is nearly impossible. The reader is given two choices as to how to read the novel: from front to back or following the links at the end of each chapter, reminiscent of the choose-your-own-adventure books from childhood. The story is loosely based on the legend of the albatross involving star-crossed lovers but ends up in a chase through time by the lovers in an attempt to reconcile. It is oddly beautiful and certainly haunting. The basic premise is that by looking into one another's eyes, "souls" can cross and embed in the other person. Originally the Law decreed that it was temporary, that the souls must cross back. Somehow that law was not followed and the souls traveled through history . . . searching for each other.

Number one: this is a cleverly designed and well-executed idea. Many truly unique personalities were introduced as the story progressed. At the end of the book I became ensconced in a loop of sorts so I am not certain I actually completed it. There is a list in the beginning of the book to guide a reader that chooses to read in a non-sequential order, but it is chapter titles, which do not appear in the book, so of limited use. Despite that, I enjoyed the book. It is unusual to read something so totally creative. It was interesting to get to know the people written about and how their lives changed after their own crossing. Glimpses into different times in history as the souls travelled. It was an experience that I was happy to have; a journey I was happy to take. I recommend it if you are up for something different and challenging.

I was invited to read a free ARC of Crossings by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #crossings

A very enjoyable story with many main characters intricately melded together that kept me reading. A book I will definitely recommend and read again differently in the future.

Check out this book on Goodreads: Crossings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51170065-crossingsI received this as an ARC thrugh #NetGalley for an honest review.

There are 2 ways to read this book. 1)as three short stories or 2) jumping around the book to creat one long story, a full novel. #2 is the way i read it since im not really a fan of short stories.

The story starts off with 2 people on a South Pacific island. Their souls "cross" to other bodies and they can be together. The book follows them as they continue to cross through other lives for approximately 150 years.

Since this is written for both reading ways to work, i feel that i got a little lost as to which soul i was reading about. But the stories were well told otherwise. With interesting characters. I think if it wasnt so ambiguous, i might have given this book 4+ stars.

I think it was a very clever way to write a story. I wish i was a faster reader. I would have read it both ways before posting a review. I do look forward to reading something elae written by this same author.

Wow! What an awesome book! Crossings by Alex Landragin is an original, fascinating book. The two options for reading are such a wonderful, fresh idea. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC.

A very enjoyable story with many main characters intricately melded together that kept me reading. A book I will definitely recommend and read again differently in the future.

There aren't very many 'new' ways to write a book. But somehow Alex Landragin has discovered a fresh and inventive way to tell a story. "Crossings" can be read traditionally from front to back, but it can also be read in what is called the "Baroness Sequence," where the reader skips around to different chapters as instructed in the preface. I decided to stick with the traditional format but went back after I was done reading to see how the alternate version would have worked. I have to say I was super impressed by this idea!

It's difficult to sum up "Crossings" because it holds so many different storylines and characters. But the theme throughout is a character's ability to cross over into a new body whenever they wish (taking over the new identity in the process). This concept reminded me a lot of Sarah Pinborough's "Behind Her Eyes." However, this story is told from a more historical perspective, spanning hundreds of years so it had a much different vibe to it. The beginning of the novel felt a little hard for me to connect with, but the third section, "Tales of the Albatross," is where I really felt excited to keep reading. This part of the story had a clear protagonist and villain and lots of loose ends were tied up so that the previous chapters made more sense. The writing can feel a tad dense at times in the beginning, but I encourage readers to stick with it in order to see the whole plot pay off in the end. I will be looking forward to seeing what Landragin comes up with next!

What an imagination! Not really my go-to kind of book. The fantastical parts of it reminded me of books by Chloe Benjamin. I did have some trouble following all of the "crossings" and keeping up with who is who and in what body. It was thought-provoking. I read the book straight through, each of three parts in line. I am tempted to go back and read it in the alternate order.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Such an original and fascinating idea! Just by staring into someone's eyes, you can change bodies and lives with them. Crossings, a debut novel by Alex Landragin, uses formal language as though the book were written years ago.

Underpinning everything is a fantastical story of the arrival of the first Europeans to a remote island in Polynesia and how two lovers are affected and hasten the end of their people's world. Elements of romance, mystery, history, and speculative fiction weave together to complete this compelling tale of obsession.

FIRST LINE: "I didn't write this book. I stole it."

WHAT I THOUGHT: The three part novel, which can be read in two different directions, ultimately spans a hundred and fifty years and seven lifetimes.

Apparently the tales make the most sense when read from front to back, but the author offers an alternate reading called the "Baroness style" which jumps around through the novel.

I am always reluctant to set a book aside so after I finished a traditional reading, I decided to explore the book following the guiding links, but quickly tired of reading the same words even though sections were put together differently. I found it confusing (at least in ebook format). I suggest you read Crossings one way and stick to that. Personally, I would prefer to read this in book format.

BOTTOM LINE: This story demands active reading. Skimming will not be rewarding, but for those who are enchanted by the tale, this amazing story will set you off on different paths of exploration. Definitely RECOMMENDED.

Disclaimer: A copy of Crossings was provided to me by St. Martin's Press/Net Galley for an honest review.

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (July 28, 2020)
ISBN-10: 1250259045
ISBN-13: 978-1250259042

ALEX LANDRAGIN is a French-Armenian-Australian writer. Currently based in Melbourne, Australia, he has also resided in Paris, Marseille, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Charlottesville. He has previously worked as a librarian, an indigenous community worker and an author of Lonely Planet travel guides in Australia, Europe and Africa. Alex holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne and occasionally performs early jazz piano under the moniker Tenderloin Stomp. Crossings is his debut novel.(from Amazon)

This novel is for readers who love both literary puzzles and books about bibliophilia. It has the antic mood of early Paul Auster works and the complex character entanglements that David Mitchell's novels have. When read from beginning to end (i.e., conventionally) there are three sections that are seemingly separate. But when read by a proscribed order that jumps back and forth from chapters all over the table of contents, there's an arc. Hard to explain, atmospheric, and fun, this isn't a conventional historical novel. Instead, it's a romp back and forth over decades and across thousands of miles, and describes how souls can cross from one character to another in accordance to strict rules. Patient readers will be rewarded.

I was granted an early copy of this fine book. Thank you for that!

This will be likely the most unusual book that have ever read! You will not forget it. It will likely confuse the reader a little... but that is OK. It is worth the struggle! The concept is very unique. It was beautifully written, well executed. I would recommend this as it is clearly different and will stretch the reader. It is a mind-bender of sorts requiring some degree of patience. Historical fiction, fantasy, mystery.

A tour de force without a doubt! This is a brilliant book with an unusual premise as well as an unusual reading format. The preface immediately grabbed me, and the "choose your own adventure" method of reading the novel within a novel within a novel only made it more deliciously fun.
A lot of times a gimmicky book format falls flat because the material isn't all that great, but this book's content was superb. It's not often I ever read a book twice, but I already find myself wanting to read parts of this again to experience the content in a different way.
I would love to buy a hard copy of this one to experience it in that format!
Read it!

A south Pacific island people have cultivated the innate ability of humans to exchange souls, and there also exists a highly structured framework for how and when to do this. The arrival of Westerners to the island causes the breakdown of this structure and two misplaced souls are stuck wandering the seas and nations while another is left behind and festers. The author presents two ways to the read the book: conventional or following a different route through the chapters. I may not have read it correctly since some of the links in the text seemed out of place. But read it I did and the tumbling through decades and various historical and fictional characters (though the cast is, in one way, more limited than it seems) intrigues, but there is a strong undercurrent of futility as well.

This was an odd but interesting novel. I choose to read it all the way through and then go back and try to put the pieces together. Since it follows 3 different plots, I wish now I had read each of the sections together as it may have been easier to follow. So many eccentric characters and a supernatural element so you just have to suspend your disbelief. It was unlike anything I've ever read before but I would certainly read more by this author!