- Crossings by Alex Landrigan
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live someone else’s life? See things from a different perspective? Crossings explores this concept in a way unlike anything you have ever seen before. The tale begins with a prologue by a bookbinder who tells us how he came across this manuscript, going into detail about what happened to its previous owner. Crossings is then broken up into three shorter stories with a connected overarching them. The first story is by the acclaimed author Charles Baudelaire during his exile in Belgium. The second is told in the weeks before the occupation of Paris during World War II by a struggling Jewish writer as he encounters a mysterious woman. The third, by far the longest, tells the story of Alula, a young girl in love with Koahu, a boy from a rival tribe on their islands. When colonizers visit them, Koahu crosses with the doctor of the ship, switching bodies with him, and Alula, desperate not to lose him, goes after him. What follows is a heartbreaking tale that spans over a century and seven lives as Alula continues her mad search for Koahu. Crossings can also be read in an alternative order, which is listed shortly after the prologue and is called the Baroness’ order. If read in this order, rather than chronologically, one will have an entirely different book, one that erases the three short stories and replaces them with one, much larger, manuscript. I have not been able to stop thinking about Crossings since I put it down and I can guarantee that you will do the same.
2. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
This is perhaps my favorite out of the three. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down and you are sure to do the same. The Starless Sea tells the story of 24-year-old MA student Zachary Ezra Rawlins. As he peruses the library one day over winter break, he picks up a book not registered in the library’s catalog. Entranced, he takes it home and stays up half the night reading it, learning about lovers destined to meet again and again, a secret society, and, above all, the symbols of the bee, sword, and key. It will, inevitably, lead him to a library beneath the ground where one can stay for several lifetimes and never learn all its secrets. As Zachary ventures deeper into this land of stories, the lines between the book that started it all and reality become hazy, leaving Zachary wondering just how much of what he read has truly occurred and what role he is destined to play in its story. Even after the close of the book, you will be left pondering this labyrinth of a story and will want to read it once more, to uncover more of its mysteries.
3. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Want a bit of a shorter read? Look no further than This is How You Lose the Time War. This novella is told in dual POV, from the perspectives of both Red and Blue, rival soldiers in a war that defies both time and space. It begins when Red finds a letter with the words “Burn before reading” on the front. Entranced, she does just that and a passionate, thrilling communication erupts between her and Blue. Their correspondence becomes increasingly intimate as each one creates new and unique ways to leave their words where only the other can find them, including both bones and thread. Red and Blue falling in love proves problematic as enemy agents in a drawn-out war with assignments to foil the others’ plan. How do Red and Blue manage? Do they betray each other or their armies? How do they live with the consequences? Read This is How You Lose the Time War to find out.