Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda
April 2010 by Amazon Encore
Paperback, 217 pages
Review Copy
Book Synopsis
A loner in his all-white high school, Chinese-born Xing (pronounced “Shing”) is a wallflower longing for acceptance. His isolation is intensified by his increasingly awkward and undeniable crush on his only friend, the beautiful and brilliant Naomi Lee. Xing’s quiet adolescent existence is rattled when a series of disappearances rock his high school and fear ripples through the blue collar community in which he lives. Amidst the chaos surrounding him, only Xing, alone on the sidelines of life, takes notice of some peculiar sightings around town. He begins to investigate with the hope that if he can help put an end to the disappearances, he will finally win the acceptance for which he has longed. However, as Xing draws closer to unveiling the identity of the abductor, he senses a noose of suspicion tightening around his own neck. While Xing races to solve the mystery and clear his name, Crossing hurtles readers towards a chilling climax. (GoodReads)
Review
I have been blown away this year by YA authors and Andrew Fukuda’s Crossing fits right in.
Crossing opens under an immediate pull of gloom, a mystery so thick with suspense it will keep you at the edge of your seat. Told completely through the perspective of Xing (Kris), a teenage outcast and immigrant boy nobody notices. Kris feels with each day that passes by, he fades a little more into the background. When he does get noticed it’s by bullies who spew their hatred racism at him, naïve mean kids who truly don’t understand that racial slurs hurt and riddle a person with insecurities. Xing looks in the mirror and wishes to be white, with blue eyes and blond hair. Instead of seeing how beautiful he truly is, he see’s ugly and thinks if only he were white life would be better. Xing’s isolation grew deep roots of insecurities that drew me to him, but also deep anger, that pulled me away from him. Highly relatable but also deeply complex to the point of troubling is how I would describe this character.
Once kids start disappearing from Xing’s school, fear surrounds the town like a thick cloud. But the fear doesn’t really spread to Xing, for the first time because of the missing kids he is recognized. A music teacher is thrilled by the discovery that Xing can sing and pushes him to take part in the musical lead at school. Without the fear of his bully, the competition of the lead vocalist, it’s Xing’s time to shine. All of this greatness for Xing leads straight to prime suspect for the outsider looking in and it’s easy to see why he would get labeled as the guilty party.
Fukuda’s writing is so detailed and beautiful that he is able to hit the reader with true emotion, when Xing yearns for his homeland and describes a time in China so exquisite, a time when he felt free, when he lingers on the smells and sounds of the street and the laughter of his friends, the longing is so intense I wanted to be there as well. Little things like that helped me connect to Xing and face some truly conflicting emotions. I wanted to believe the premise of the novel that Xing was innocent, taking the fall because he was the outcast no one paid attention to. But so much circumstantial evidence piled on top of him that I was second guessing his innocence by the end of the story. I believe that was the goal of the author, to show you the longings of this character, to see his love for Naomi, to see his grief over his father, to feel his yearnings for China and his yearning to find a place in America. Also to see his anger at injustice, to feel his shame towards his parents and see how that hate grew slowly and churned inside him. We are left seeing Xing’s innocence but automatically want to question it.
Rating
Violence, murder, freighting elements, immigration, racism and grief surround Crossings, suitable for the mature teen and adult.
5/5- YA- Suspense-Thriller
A Special thanks to Mr. Fukuda and Amazon Encore for review copy.
Author Visit
I am so excited to welcome Andrew Fukuda to Tinasbookreviews and pleased to share some fun things about this talented author. So hello Andrew and welcome to the site.......
1. What inspired you to write Crossing?
After working with immigrant teenagers in Manhattan's Chinatown for a few years, I was struck by their general disillusion with America and their sense of isolation. One time, a group of us were traveling in a very rural part of upstate New York and decided to attend church. We walked into a random church nearby; it turned out to be an all-white church. I still remember with an awful vividness the looks of suspicion and cold stares thrown our way throughout the service. Just because we looked different, just because we were Chinese. Those stares stayed with me for a long time, their coldness. That experience got me thinking: what if an immigrant teen had to live in this kind of community all alone? And what if something terribly, mysteriously awful started to happen in that community?
2. Kris (Xing) is a very easy character to relate to, yet at the same time very complex. Do you relate to him in anyway? He's probably a lot more negative about things, a lot more suspicious about people. But that's probably because he's faced a lot more overt (and violent) racism in his life, has lived a very existence, and has been stigmatized to a much larger extent. I relate to him because he is the more concentrated form of the sense of displacement I have faced in my own life. I wonder if I would be as dour as him if I'd faced half what he has faced.
3. Have novels in the mystery and suspense genre always interested you?
Yes. In fact, the thriller element in Crossing served two very important functions. First, it’s difficult to get to know a character in stasis – you need to see them in conflict, in moments of uncertainty, in naked fear, dealing with irrational thoughts, before you really get a feel for them. I wanted to place Xing in those situations as opportunities for the reader to understand Xing better. Second, I’m as much a sucker for a fast-paced/adrenaline-filled thrillers as the next person. It’s the genre that most effectively has me so effortlessly turning the pages to the end. Hopefully, Crossing has succeeded with both the emotional- and the thriller-components by weaving them together seamlessly in a way that snags the reader in and delivers an emotionally-bold and unforgettable ending.
4. What authors if any have inspired your work? Do you have a favorite author?
I love all of Jhumpa Lahiri's works, especially her short story collections Interpreter of the Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth. And although a little out-dated, John Okada's No-No Boy has always resonated deep within. Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor was Divine also has a quiet elegance and eloquence about it. None of these has a teenage protagonist but they each in their own way powerfully capture something about the sense of displacement and the yearning for a place called home.
5. Can you share with us any future works or plans for future novels?
At the moment, I have the opposite of writer’s block: two stories have tumbled into my head and heart, and both, apparently, are jostling to be written before the other. They are completely different genres involving drastically different writing styles: one is literary romance (this caught me by surprise) and the other is a YA novel with a neat spin on the dystopian genre. It’s a bizarre experience; if I spend too much time on the one, I feel unfaithful to the other. Both are flowing so well that I dare not put either aside out of fear that that might somehow dry up the creative stream.
6. What are you reading right now?
A number of different books, most notably: The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Although both are very long, they are also intensely interesting.
Thank you very much Andrew for taking the time to stop by and goodluck on your future works!!!
Check out Andrew's Goodreads page
Wow. Awesome review!
ReplyDeleteGreat review and interview. Sounds like a fascinating story.
ReplyDeleteHi Tina! Great review and interview!
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