This is such a neatly written book: every historical detail is meticulously rendered (but not so much that it overwhelms), and you can clearly picture yourself wherever (and whenever) it is that the author describes. I only wish that as much depth and description had been afforded to the characters.

Everyone (barring Baudelaire and the Walter Benjamin facsimile) feels like an archetype here - or at least they only seem to consist of a single characteristic. One character is "the forgetful one," the other "the guilty one," and still another "the angry one." And, you know, if the focus of the book had been more on the mystery/fantastical element I think I would've been okay with that. But because the book - no matter in which direction you read it - is so clearly meant to be a love story it makes it really hard to care if these lovers ever get back together because we know barely anything about them to begin with.

It's a shame because, for me, the potential was there, just waiting to be accessed. I read the book in the conventional way, and so as I made my way through the Baudelaire section (very cool) and the Benjamin section (cooler yet) I was ready to fall in love with the final part but the way the author organized the crossings ended up being very repetitious. I imagine this isn't a problem when reading the Baroness sequence, but all the same, the Baudelaire bit was a short story in his style, the Walter Benjamin bit was a noir, shouldn't the last part have been written in a literary style too? Feels like another missed opportunity.

All the same it is an interesting book, and I'm sure other readers will enjoy it more than I did. Because I did enjoy it - I just didn't think it lived up to its full potential.

This is a beautifully written, unique sometimes frustrating book. Will you have to read it twice...? Well, you won't *have* to, but you might want to. It's certainly the most unique book I've read in a long time, and I can't imagine the effort required to construct it.

My recommendation is to read it straight through first. I tried the Baroness sequence but found it too difficult to properly settle into the story that way.

This is definitely a book I'll be reading again.

WOW this book deserves more then 5 stard. It's writen beautifully and super unique you must read it for yourself!! At first I was a bit confused but once I got the hang of it I was completely drawn in and couldn't get enough. Thank you Netgalley for an ARC for this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! What a read. It was fascinating. I really enjoyed this genre-bending story that defies descriptions.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

4.5 Stars!

Crossings by Alex Landragin is wholly unique and very well written. It's dark and edgy and highly creative. My emotions ranged from rage toward the syphilitic, misogynist protagonist who beats his girlfriend Jeanne to bloody ribbons (she gets even; she gives him the syphilis), to enjoying the hilarity of his unpleasant, grouchy view of the world. His description of Belgium had me laughing out loud. Their Crossing was surprising and drew me further into the multidimensional story.

I wasn't able to read the book two ways because I have an old, original Kindle that didn't work well with the mechanics of this novel. A print version of the book would have worked better. However, I applaud the author and publisher for pushing the boundaries and offering readers something different. Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book.

An innovative and genre-bending novel that really makes you focus on the act of reading and your interaction with the story. The story itself spans decades and eras in a beautiful way, though I almost wish there was more diversity in the sensibilities and tonalities of the various threads. That's a small, personal note though that doesn't take away from the experience of the novel. If you're looking for something unique and immersive, I'd recommend CROSSINGS by Alex Landragin.

I got hopelessly lost trying to read this book. I found it just too confusing. I think the of reading the book in page order or in the "baroness order" is really ingenious. But I just.got lost - both ways I tried to read the book. It never connected for me.

Crossings is an interesting book. A 3 part novel based on the transmigration of souls while still living. I read the book in the Baroness sequence and enjoyed the mix of multiple timelines. It was, at times, hard to keep track of everything and this was exacerbated by the fact that the Kindle version doesn't always go where it is supposed to in order to continue the Baroness sequence.

I would recommend this book to this that like intricate, interwoven storyline. I suppose reading straight through would take out some of the complexity, but I believe it also takes away the intermingling of the story lines.

After a reading three chapters of this book. I needed to put it down..This book was a little to dark for me. Sorry I couldn’t finished it.

This boon was fascinating. I’ve never come across a book intended to be read in two directions. I chose to read the back-and-forth method that allows you to see how the various stories intertwine, and really enjoyed it. I found the story got increasingly complex near the end but still liked it. The writing is gorgeous.

This book is a good one but a bit more esoteric than I expected. I quite love short stories when they are done well. I am not always a fan mostly because short stories are just that...too short. Quite often short story writers spend more time introducing the story and characters and have left little time at the end to tie things up into a natural conclusion. Not so with this novel. I found each story to be wonderful on its own. I read each chronologically; however, I guess they can be read in any order. This book is quite intense, and I encouraged myself to give my full attention to it. Thank you! :)

Beautiful. Slow. Dull.

The concept of this novel is what originally drew me in. The idea of having a book be read two different ways, one of which involves a choose your own adventure type of navigation, was genius. I chose to try out the Baroness sequence (which is explained in the prologue), and after reading such a strong beginning, I was ready to devour the story and give it five stars.

Alas, I couldn't even get through the novel in it's entirety.

The prose was lovely, but every little thing was being described. I would zone out in the middle of the page, and have to go back eight paragraphs just to try and remember what was happening. Literary fiction is a genre I enjoy thoroughly, but in this case the beautiful writing was all there was.

I tried so incredibly hard to form an attachment to at least one of the story lines--there are three, after all!--but couldn't bring myself to care about a single character or even one of the plots. Characters are what make or break a story for me, and in this case I cared so little about the people in the story that I knew I had to mark this book as a DNF (Did Not Finish).

The story could not hold my attention, and the jumping back and forth and back and forth and back again got to be so jarring that I could hardly orient myself at all. I found that the parts I did read were predictable, and there was no thrill, no tension, no stakes. The love story was bland and did not hook me in at all, and I've already forgotten both the characters and their names.

If this book was as incredible as that prologue, I would have taken hours off from life to devour it and would have most definitely rated it a full five stars. But, it wasn't like that, and so I stopped reading half way through.

Although I myself could not bother to enjoy this, I know that it had mostly to do with the fact that this book was not for me. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I do hope that the targeted audience for this book finds it and loves it, and I wholeheartedly believe that this book deserves so much hype when it gets released. It's a genre bending story, and reads like a classic, so in that sense it is extremely promising.

In the end, though, I couldn't force myself into finishing it.

Of course, thank you NetGalley for giving me a chance with this novel, and I hope the next person who picks it up falls in love with it.

**Book Review**
I was very excited to read this book. Historical fiction that has themes similar to time travel and a book that you can read front to back or in the baroness format (each chapter would jump to a new section of the book). Sign me up!

I quickly became frustrated by the non working links at the end of a chapter that either drop you into the middle of a chapter or put you into an infinite loop that you can’t get out of. I even tried to follow the sequence in the order in the note section and that didn’t work. It made a story that intentionally was to jump (‘cross’) between characters more confusing than necessary. I do like the intent of the book - I just wish I had read it in the traditional format.

The story is told from the perspective of a young girl from the island of Oaeetee who learned the way of crossings, where a soul is exchanged with another. The second perspective is Charles Beaudelaire, the poet and the third a German Jew in Paris during the wary. The book can be read in two ways, from beginning to end basically as three short stories and the other is the Baroness Sequence jumping back and forth between each POV. I opted for the second. At the end of each chapter on my Kindle was a link that said go here. Unfortunately at some point the links no longer worked and I was jumping around a bit so I'm not actually sure I read the whole book. I imagine that authors who write in different perspectives or time lines write it the way this book is written but then take those chapters and intermingle them afterwards to reveal a bit of the story at a time and you can see how each links up. The characters were quite interesting and the whole idea of being able to switch souls in order to live different lives and do so indefinitely definitely gives something to think about.

Thank you to Netgalley for offering this book as a read now in exchange for my opinion.

This was one of the most unique books I've ever read, however, not in a bad way. In a good way. However, to be honest, I couldn't describe the premise of this book even if I tried. What I can say is, I've never read anything like this. The writing was incredible and really drew me in. I think the writer did an incredible job of keeping the pace steady. My interest never strayed. Don't read the synopsis going into this book. I'd recommend going in blind. This is truly a reading experience you'll never forget it!

A wonderful, unique, engrossing read! The story follows 3 different narratives, and if read from start to finish as one would normally read a book, they are 3 separate but entwined stories. In the 'Baroness Sequence," the reader starts in the middle and follows links at the end of each chapter. This way the reader will be taken on an adventure through all the narratives at different times.

Unfortunately, the Kindle version I was using had some glitches and after a while did not go to the right place, and eventually just kept revolving in a loop. Hopefully, this will be solved before publication, as this is one of those stories not to be missed. I eventually gave up following the Baroness Sequence and went back to the start and read it in the conventional way, and still enjoyed it very much. It can get a bit complicated with all the different 'crossings' and storylines, to try and follow who is who, but well worth the effort. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with the ARC.

Crossings (2019)
By Alex Landragin
St. Martins Press, 384 pages
★★★★

Crossings, the debut novel from Alex Landragin, has a bit of everything: pure fiction, literary fiction, science fiction, romance, mystery, anthropological observations, and paranormal activity. It spans 150 years of time, but implies things ancient and inexplicable.

The novel opens with a clever device. It’s opening lines are, “I didn’t write this book. I stole it.” Baroness Beatie Ellingham visits a respected Belgian bookbinder and advises she will send a book by courier with instructions and materials on recovering the text. She makes him promise that he will not read it. All bets are off, though, when the bookbinder discovers several days later that the baroness is dead, the victim of a grisly murder in which her eyes were cut out. As the bookbinder peruses the volume, he observes that the baroness has made notes on how to re-sequence the chapters. And so, it is left to each reader to decide whether to read it straight through as originally written, or as Baroness Ellingham re-arranged it.

The first path will take you through three interconnected novelettes: “The Education of a Monster,” reportedly an unknown ghost story from French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire (1821-67); “City of Ghosts,” a noir romance whose central character is clearly German philosopher/theorist/critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940); and the third, “Tales of the Albatross,” which involves Polynesian rituals and a (literally) timeless love story. The baroness’ path is more circuitous, but it weaves the three separate stories into a single strand.

Any way you read it–and most will choose one and sample the second–you will wend your way through an amazing, often perplexing tale in which Baudelaire and Benjamin factor prominently. If you take you cues from the baroness, the narrative opens with a chapter titled “This is Where the Story Ends.” A man (Benjamin) encounters a mysterious woman in Paris’ Montparnasse Cemetery standing aside a tomb in which four past presidents of the Charles Baudelaire Society are buried. The year is 1940, Nazi troops are just outside of the city, and Benjamin, a Jew, knows he needs to flee. Yet he lingers as he yet he is drawn to the woman, and over several dangerous days, falls in love with her. It is truly a fatal attraction, though not how you might imagine.

The baroness’ sequence is, however, neither how the story ends or begins. A true beginning requires gleaning from the novel’s most difficult-to-grasp sections from “Tales of the Albatross.” These take place on a Polynesian island named Oáeetee, which we visit first in 1771. There we learn of several unusual rituals, including a tattoo practice restricted to inscribing the body only with inked eyes. More unusual still is the rite of “crossing,” which gives us the novel’s title. Initiates (and sometimes a novice) stare into each other’s eyes and by doing so, exchange bodies. It is such a powerful and potentially dangerous practice that the island’s chief mandate (merely called the Law) is “there be no crossing without a return crossing.” “Blind crossings,” those in which the second party is unaware of the exchange are considered especially dangerous. In 1791, however, a French ship enters the harbor and circumstance drives two lovers, Koahu (male) and Alula (female) to violate the Law. This will set in motion a pursuit across time and the globe in which Koahu will assume six bodies and Alula seven. Baudelaire is somehow in the middle of all of this.

Crossings will put you in mind of David Mitchell novels. This means that it is nearly impossible to describe what happens in a linear fashion. Crossings also involves gender transformations that evoke Virginia Wolff’s Orlando, as well as racial crossing. From here you can start adding elements: a mad bookseller, mesmerism, colonialism, slavery, gold teeth, violence, evocations of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and the appearance of French designer Coco Chanel. She, Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Jeanne Duval, a former slave who was Baudelaire’s muse and lover, are historical figures who interact with colorful imagined characters.

Is Crossings a vampire tale? Not really. A paranormal fantasy? Maybe. An overdressed romance? Possibly. I don’t mean to be coy. Like a David Mitchell novel, reading Crossings is more experiential than sequential–another reason why it can be read several different ways. It is also one whose internal logic is peculiar to the worlds Alex Landrigan interconnects. Your imagination is the only key that can unlock any of it.

Crossings is also a book one hopes is never adapted for a film. At best, a movie would impose coherence to a book whose magic lies in controlled incoherence. At worst, as was done with Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, a movie would make a complete hash of the novel. Crossings may frustrate you at times–I suggest you keep a list of characters and their avatars–but I heartily recommend that you read it. You are unlikely to come across too many other books this delightfully weird and unique.

Rob Weir

I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and author Alex Landragin for providing me with an ARC of this novel.

This reminded me so much of one of those Choose Your Own books you read in middle school, but without the tedious task of picking which path to take. Following the different characters throughout the novel, seeing all of the stories develop alongside one another, and then seeing the end product was enthralling! This isn’t a book I would usually pick up, but I’m glad I did. This was an experience in and of itself. I am floored that this is the author’s debut, and I look forward to seeing more of their work. I do think this would be much better as a physical book than as a Kindle/e-edition, but that’s just personal preference!

Thank you to those named above for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Crossings by Alex Landragin is a very clever novel which can be described as a mystery, a dark psychological thriller, a tale of paranormal/magical doings, and a time-travel tale with some real-life characters, like Baudelaire and Coco Chanel, thrown into the mix.
The premise that people can “cross” into another’s body through their eyes is thought-provoking, as the eyes have long been considered to be the “windows into the soul.”
This book consists of three separate manuscripts which can be read either straight through or in a “Baroness Sequence,” hopping chapters and time periods as directed by the author.
I tried both methods—I first read the book from beginning to end; then I reread it using the Baroness Sequence. I think, for me, it would have been difficult to understand the stories if I had started with the Baroness Sequence. But it was fun to reread the book using that ingenious time-hopping construct.
Landragin is a skilled writer and his intricate prose is reminiscent of some classic 19th century authors of complex mysteries and supernatural tales, like Poe and Conan Doyle. The setting is a dark, dreamy Paris and the characters are similarly dark and complicated.
For the writer’s skill I would give this book a 5 star rating!
As a reader, I very much enjoy classic mysteries and tales of the supernatural. But for me, this story was a bit too fantastical and felt too long. I had difficulty staying interested in all the machinations of the characters.
So for the story itself, I would rate it a 3.
Overall rating: 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4, with much appreciation for the writer’s skill and imaginative presentation.)

I tried as I got myself up to 30% and when you push aside a book ten times in an hour to check your phone, you know that this one is just not for you!