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How We Named the Stars
Set between the United States and México, Andrés N. Ordorica’s debut novel is a tender and lyrical exploration of belonging, grief, and first love―a love story for those so often written off the page.
When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first―but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light.
But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family’s ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what’s happened and faces a host of new How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle’s? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward?
Equal parts tender and triumphant, Andrés N. Ordorica’s How We Named the Stars is a debut novel of love, heartache, redemption, and learning to honor the dead; a story of finding the strength to figure out who you are―and who you could be―if only the world would let you.
When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first―but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light.
But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family’s ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what’s happened and faces a host of new How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle’s? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward?
Equal parts tender and triumphant, Andrés N. Ordorica’s How We Named the Stars is a debut novel of love, heartache, redemption, and learning to honor the dead; a story of finding the strength to figure out who you are―and who you could be―if only the world would let you.
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First published January 30, 2024
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About the author
Andrés N. Ordorica
5 books97 followersAndrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. His writing seeks to illuminate love and loss while unpacking what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá. He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and Holy Boys and the novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Kavya Prize, Morley Lit Prize, Mo Siewcharran Prize and Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In 2024, he was selected as one of The Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists. The following year he was named by The Skinny as one of 12 of Scotland’s Next Generation of Writers.
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January 28, 2024
It still makes me nervous whenever I write a negative review for a debut novelist who is still alive (Lately, I have been reading novels from the 1800’s so not a lot of risk of offending authors there).
To Mr. Ordorica – You have an important voice. Please don’t let this review derail you, and I have been wrong about a lot of books. You also might not have found the perfect editor for you yet.
So….wipes sweaty palms….deep breath….let’s get this over with…..
1. Narrative voice – The book is written in an awkward, weird mix of first and second person perspective. “If you asked me to explain why I chose this constellation to be yours—which of course you would, being you—I’d say that….” It should have been in third person perspective.
2. Formatting was confusing. The header says 1989 and then a character says it is 2011.
3. Far too many descriptions of the landscape. I would start by reviewing every instance of “green” and “rock”.
4. Far too many uses of the word “like”.
5. At least the first paragraph needs to be rewritten. It was so confusing and disorienting that I had to read it 3 or 4 times, partly the confusion relates back to the aforementioned messy 1st/2nd person perspective.
6. If Daniel is a poor student on scholarship, why doesn’t he have a summer job?
7. I didn’t feel vested in the romance which had so much potential. Think of the greatest romances of our time. Jay Gatsby creates an entire empire for Daisy, and Noah builds a house for Allie in The Notebook. What does Sam do? He tells Daniel to go to class. Say what?! What is so special about Sam? Daniel could have taught Sam Spanish, shared tamales, danced reggaeton together. Maybe Daniel has never had a birthday party, and Sam blows up hundreds of ballons in their cozy little dorm room. Maybe they watch a movie, and he gently covers him up with a blanket. Maybe Sam teaches Daniel to drive so every time Daniel drives he thinks of Sam. Maybe Sam teaches Daniel math, Sam tutors him, fingertips brush, and Daniel is so shy that he types I love you into the calculator. But instead they eat pretzels at the food court with Sam’s dad, and Sam gives Daniel a one-time pep talk. Is this what romance is these days?
How We Named the Stars feels like a draft and needs a lot of work.
Mr. Ordorica –You have promise, and I would be happy to proof your future works.
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.
How much I spent:
Electronic text – Free/Nada/Zilch through NetGalley provided by publisher
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To Mr. Ordorica – You have an important voice. Please don’t let this review derail you, and I have been wrong about a lot of books. You also might not have found the perfect editor for you yet.
So….wipes sweaty palms….deep breath….let’s get this over with…..
1. Narrative voice – The book is written in an awkward, weird mix of first and second person perspective. “If you asked me to explain why I chose this constellation to be yours—which of course you would, being you—I’d say that….” It should have been in third person perspective.
2. Formatting was confusing. The header says 1989 and then a character says it is 2011.
3. Far too many descriptions of the landscape. I would start by reviewing every instance of “green” and “rock”.
4. Far too many uses of the word “like”.
5. At least the first paragraph needs to be rewritten. It was so confusing and disorienting that I had to read it 3 or 4 times, partly the confusion relates back to the aforementioned messy 1st/2nd person perspective.
6. If Daniel is a poor student on scholarship, why doesn’t he have a summer job?
7. I didn’t feel vested in the romance which had so much potential. Think of the greatest romances of our time. Jay Gatsby creates an entire empire for Daisy, and Noah builds a house for Allie in The Notebook. What does Sam do? He tells Daniel to go to class. Say what?! What is so special about Sam? Daniel could have taught Sam Spanish, shared tamales, danced reggaeton together. Maybe Daniel has never had a birthday party, and Sam blows up hundreds of ballons in their cozy little dorm room. Maybe they watch a movie, and he gently covers him up with a blanket. Maybe Sam teaches Daniel to drive so every time Daniel drives he thinks of Sam. Maybe Sam teaches Daniel math, Sam tutors him, fingertips brush, and Daniel is so shy that he types I love you into the calculator. But instead they eat pretzels at the food court with Sam’s dad, and Sam gives Daniel a one-time pep talk. Is this what romance is these days?
How We Named the Stars feels like a draft and needs a lot of work.
Mr. Ordorica –You have promise, and I would be happy to proof your future works.
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.
How much I spent:
Electronic text – Free/Nada/Zilch through NetGalley provided by publisher
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
January 29, 2024
It’s only January and I’m just going to tell you now, this one is going to be on my best of 2024 list. Ordorica’s writing and characters and story had my whole heart right from the start. It’s the first book in a long time that I read slowly because I didn’t want it to end. Many thanks to Tin House for the gifted copy.
June 26, 2024
Firstly, in defense of the book, let me say this: There are some 2/3 star reviews of this book, but the parts of the book they critique just feel, to me, like the things they have not lived. The voice of the writer feels confusing at times because being desperately in love with someone at 19 who cannot articulate his feelings back to you IS confusing. The overall style of writing to Sam and not the reader is just Daniel saying everything to Sam that he could not say when they were together. The supposed blurred timelines are explained toward the end of the book, and were obvious from context clues earlier on.
And now, my own review:
If you ever wonder how the world keeps turning and how we are, deep down, all the same, just know this. I related so deeply to a queer Latinx boy that I felt some of these pages were copied from my own 19-year-old journal. The combination of angst and deep reflection was spot on. This is a story about love and about grief, about honoring those human experiences while discovering who you are and where you came from, and who you might someday be. Living and loving is wonderful and painful and passionate and devastating and hopeful and hopeless - all of this is amplified at 19 years old, that torturous in-between age - and Ordorica absolutely nails it all.
And now, my own review:
If you ever wonder how the world keeps turning and how we are, deep down, all the same, just know this. I related so deeply to a queer Latinx boy that I felt some of these pages were copied from my own 19-year-old journal. The combination of angst and deep reflection was spot on. This is a story about love and about grief, about honoring those human experiences while discovering who you are and where you came from, and who you might someday be. Living and loving is wonderful and painful and passionate and devastating and hopeful and hopeless - all of this is amplified at 19 years old, that torturous in-between age - and Ordorica absolutely nails it all.
February 1, 2024
✰ 2 stars ✰
“I wanted to ask if they missed me, if they could explain what it was like to fall in love? All these questions felt important in that moment.
All of it felt as unknowable as where words came from, why stars were given their names, how two friends could learn to be more.”
I don't deny that being a debut author is a challenge all on its own; it takes courage and a lot of strength to share a part of your voice and see how they'll respond to it. I applaud authors who try to do something different than the norm - attempt to bring about a different take on a story that has been told numerous times in various forms - each hoping that there will be one that will leave a positive mark in the literary world. And sadly, How We Named the Stars may have had the potential to be an impactful read, the choice of writing style severely affected its overall promise.
“You hugged me so tightly you nearly knocked over my tray. But I didn’t mind, because being held by you was everything. It was, I was starting to realize, one step closer to what I really longed for but could not yet say aloud.”
For it was in the telling rather than the showing that the coming-of-age story of eighteen-year-old college student Daniel de Luna Luna suffered greatly. It has all the ingredients for an interesting story, albeit one done multiple times already. Daniel is shy and reserved, still uncomfortable in accepting his sexuality, still not prepared to be the social butterfly that his classmates and family so easily become. But, Sam, his engaging and vibrant roommate, is the one who sees something more in him - sees that under the shadow of a quiet person who wishes to remain in the shadows, lies the soul of someone he wants to get to know - someone who shines brighter than the stars that they're both fascinated with. 😥
And in their freshmen year, the tentative lines blur over their roommate boundaries to become something deeper and more intimate and best friends become more than best friends. It's the first love experience at its finest - complete with the emotional angst and the whirlwind pool of denial, topped off with the separation of closure and rounded with a heart-wrenching conclusion that reminds us how fleeting first love can be. 💔 And amidst the romantic overtures, as Daniel learns a bit more of his own family and of those he shares more than just a bloodline with, but a namesake, as well, he comes to terms with life and his place in it.
So, what went wrong?
Sadly, the fault lay entirely in where it matters the most - the writing. 😮💨 Choosing to write in the format of the Daniel addressing the narrative and his thoughts to Sam, hence having the entire story being told as a retelling of sorts, calling Sam never by his name, but as 'you' REALLY made it harder to empathize with the story, with his emotions, and even get a sense of appreciation to what was happening. 🙅🏻♀️ It made for some very ineffective choices that in turn made the more impactful and emotional moments not come across as they were supposed to.
I also noted an imbalance of tone in Daniel's expressions; one minute, it's trying to be profound and deep and meaningful, and then, there's moments like this - 'I looked like shit and I felt like shit and all around me the restrooms smelled of shit. All this shit was a perfect manifestation of the chaos I found myself in' that made me wonder what audience the target was trying to reach. 🤔 The writing left much to be desired, and not in a good way. There's simplicity and then there's grandiose ways of talking. For the life of me, I did not get any sense that the characters were behaving or talking in a realistic or believable fashion; the choice of vocabulary that they were using seemed like such an odd choice, almost as if the author was using a thesaurus to use words that could have been stated in a much simpler way. 🤦🏻♀️
“In your arms, the world felt safest, infinitely possible. In your arms was our world, but that did not mean the rest of the world did not exist, and this reality is what I needed to start coming to grips with.
I couldn’t hide from myself forever.”
It did not help matters either that there was an influx of he told/she told rather than going into detail. It did help that certain conversations were devoid of descriptive adjectives that would enhance the character's tone, giving it some infliction that would glean what they were feeling at the moment. 😩 Without those necessary additions, the intended voice came out flat, listless, dull, without any feeling to it. It was emotionless and drab, and it was already hindered with the need of having everything being recalled or retold, this did not help matters. 😒
In fact, more care and attention to sensory detail was given to scenery and objects rather than bringing to life a character's voice. I'm not trying to sound nitpicky, but my God, at one of the most critical moments that you needed to feel the full frontal brunt of delivery - it was stoic and bland and impassive. I never realized or appreciated how important it is to simply have a he said/she said inclusion in any form to help me express characters' dialogue. Without it, the conversation has no life to it. I can't even share the moment that really deserved much more impact, but... The story was there - the writing just didn't bring it to life. 🙍🏻♀️
Sometimes I feel pity for authors of literary fiction - queer or not - because they have to draw a fine line between how much gratuitous sex they can allude to without it affecting the delicate sensibilities of their more literary-inclined readers? 😅 At times, I think the author was sorely tempted to capture the passion and intimacy on a more potent level; but, there's only so much graphic detail, I suppose you can include, without it overtaking the story and crossing the line of what readers of said genre are wont to appreciating. 'You kissed me, and I kissed you, and we went on kissing with all the desire that had built up since we’d first met. We let go of words for the rest of the morning, allowing touch to say all that we had left unsaid for too long.' Oh, trust me, this is perhaps the most tamest of examples, but there were certain scenes a bit more spicy than the norm. 😉 So, as much as I did feel that the author wished to provide much more explicit content than what was shown to highlight Daniel's sexual tendencies and his foray in these further exploitations, I think they did provide just enough to satisfy both sides.
And do you know where the writing was actually the strongest and most believable? Where the expressions rang true and I felt the words in my heart.
The Author's Note and the Acknowledgements.
Now, isn't that just sad? 🥺 That goes to show that the author truly does have the ability to write from the heart and convey enough emotion to make the words resonate. If only, he had opted to present this story in a different way, it would have been so much more effective - so much more heart to it, rather than the monotonous tone it adopted. I had high hopes - it's always a shame to have them shattered. 😔
“I hope my version of man is unafraid to love, that he carries with him all the joys of youth, all the wonders of childhood, all the ways in which life can be surprising.
I don’t want to be weighed down by the world, I want to float freely, soaring higher until I can eventually touch the sun.”
Despite my harsh critique on the writing, because let's face it, we all view writing differently, it wasn't entirely all that bad. It wasn't boring, even if it's not entirely a new idea, save for its execution. The tone had issues, but the pacing was alright. At first, there was some confusion as to which timeline the characters were in, but, if you're patient, you will start to see what the author was trying to imply. 👍🏻 There were some gentle and tender moments that captured Daniel's journey of self-growth and acceptance of his identity. Through trials and tribulations, he reached into the stars and found a part of himself that he had been too afraid to pull out of himself. The power of friendship allowed him to embrace that side that he had kept hidden and with the courage of those who have walked before him, he started to feel more comfortable, as himself.
It's an emotional and spiritual journey that with the love and guidance of family, he learned what it means to love and be loved in return - and to treasure the moments spent together, for you don't know how fleeting they may be. 'I was starting to understand that life was a matter of deciding what to keep alive and what to let die.' ❤️🩹❤️🩹 There was some beautiful prose that really captured the spirit of a wayward soul and one that finally discovered what it means to shed one's inhibitions and embrace themselves as they are - without guilt or remorse. I don't deny that the story had heart - it just didn't have that strong a heartbeat for me to hear. 😔
“I wanted to ask if they missed me, if they could explain what it was like to fall in love? All these questions felt important in that moment.
All of it felt as unknowable as where words came from, why stars were given their names, how two friends could learn to be more.”
I don't deny that being a debut author is a challenge all on its own; it takes courage and a lot of strength to share a part of your voice and see how they'll respond to it. I applaud authors who try to do something different than the norm - attempt to bring about a different take on a story that has been told numerous times in various forms - each hoping that there will be one that will leave a positive mark in the literary world. And sadly, How We Named the Stars may have had the potential to be an impactful read, the choice of writing style severely affected its overall promise.
“You hugged me so tightly you nearly knocked over my tray. But I didn’t mind, because being held by you was everything. It was, I was starting to realize, one step closer to what I really longed for but could not yet say aloud.”
For it was in the telling rather than the showing that the coming-of-age story of eighteen-year-old college student Daniel de Luna Luna suffered greatly. It has all the ingredients for an interesting story, albeit one done multiple times already. Daniel is shy and reserved, still uncomfortable in accepting his sexuality, still not prepared to be the social butterfly that his classmates and family so easily become. But, Sam, his engaging and vibrant roommate, is the one who sees something more in him - sees that under the shadow of a quiet person who wishes to remain in the shadows, lies the soul of someone he wants to get to know - someone who shines brighter than the stars that they're both fascinated with. 😥
And in their freshmen year, the tentative lines blur over their roommate boundaries to become something deeper and more intimate and best friends become more than best friends. It's the first love experience at its finest - complete with the emotional angst and the whirlwind pool of denial, topped off with the separation of closure and rounded with a heart-wrenching conclusion that reminds us how fleeting first love can be. 💔 And amidst the romantic overtures, as Daniel learns a bit more of his own family and of those he shares more than just a bloodline with, but a namesake, as well, he comes to terms with life and his place in it.
So, what went wrong?
Sadly, the fault lay entirely in where it matters the most - the writing. 😮💨 Choosing to write in the format of the Daniel addressing the narrative and his thoughts to Sam, hence having the entire story being told as a retelling of sorts, calling Sam never by his name, but as 'you' REALLY made it harder to empathize with the story, with his emotions, and even get a sense of appreciation to what was happening. 🙅🏻♀️ It made for some very ineffective choices that in turn made the more impactful and emotional moments not come across as they were supposed to.
I also noted an imbalance of tone in Daniel's expressions; one minute, it's trying to be profound and deep and meaningful, and then, there's moments like this - 'I looked like shit and I felt like shit and all around me the restrooms smelled of shit. All this shit was a perfect manifestation of the chaos I found myself in' that made me wonder what audience the target was trying to reach. 🤔 The writing left much to be desired, and not in a good way. There's simplicity and then there's grandiose ways of talking. For the life of me, I did not get any sense that the characters were behaving or talking in a realistic or believable fashion; the choice of vocabulary that they were using seemed like such an odd choice, almost as if the author was using a thesaurus to use words that could have been stated in a much simpler way. 🤦🏻♀️
“In your arms, the world felt safest, infinitely possible. In your arms was our world, but that did not mean the rest of the world did not exist, and this reality is what I needed to start coming to grips with.
I couldn’t hide from myself forever.”
It did not help matters either that there was an influx of he told/she told rather than going into detail. It did help that certain conversations were devoid of descriptive adjectives that would enhance the character's tone, giving it some infliction that would glean what they were feeling at the moment. 😩 Without those necessary additions, the intended voice came out flat, listless, dull, without any feeling to it. It was emotionless and drab, and it was already hindered with the need of having everything being recalled or retold, this did not help matters. 😒
In fact, more care and attention to sensory detail was given to scenery and objects rather than bringing to life a character's voice. I'm not trying to sound nitpicky, but my God, at one of the most critical moments that you needed to feel the full frontal brunt of delivery - it was stoic and bland and impassive. I never realized or appreciated how important it is to simply have a he said/she said inclusion in any form to help me express characters' dialogue. Without it, the conversation has no life to it. I can't even share the moment that really deserved much more impact, but... The story was there - the writing just didn't bring it to life. 🙍🏻♀️
Sometimes I feel pity for authors of literary fiction - queer or not - because they have to draw a fine line between how much gratuitous sex they can allude to without it affecting the delicate sensibilities of their more literary-inclined readers? 😅 At times, I think the author was sorely tempted to capture the passion and intimacy on a more potent level; but, there's only so much graphic detail, I suppose you can include, without it overtaking the story and crossing the line of what readers of said genre are wont to appreciating. 'You kissed me, and I kissed you, and we went on kissing with all the desire that had built up since we’d first met. We let go of words for the rest of the morning, allowing touch to say all that we had left unsaid for too long.' Oh, trust me, this is perhaps the most tamest of examples, but there were certain scenes a bit more spicy than the norm. 😉 So, as much as I did feel that the author wished to provide much more explicit content than what was shown to highlight Daniel's sexual tendencies and his foray in these further exploitations, I think they did provide just enough to satisfy both sides.
And do you know where the writing was actually the strongest and most believable? Where the expressions rang true and I felt the words in my heart.
The Author's Note and the Acknowledgements.
Now, isn't that just sad? 🥺 That goes to show that the author truly does have the ability to write from the heart and convey enough emotion to make the words resonate. If only, he had opted to present this story in a different way, it would have been so much more effective - so much more heart to it, rather than the monotonous tone it adopted. I had high hopes - it's always a shame to have them shattered. 😔
“I hope my version of man is unafraid to love, that he carries with him all the joys of youth, all the wonders of childhood, all the ways in which life can be surprising.
I don’t want to be weighed down by the world, I want to float freely, soaring higher until I can eventually touch the sun.”
Despite my harsh critique on the writing, because let's face it, we all view writing differently, it wasn't entirely all that bad. It wasn't boring, even if it's not entirely a new idea, save for its execution. The tone had issues, but the pacing was alright. At first, there was some confusion as to which timeline the characters were in, but, if you're patient, you will start to see what the author was trying to imply. 👍🏻 There were some gentle and tender moments that captured Daniel's journey of self-growth and acceptance of his identity. Through trials and tribulations, he reached into the stars and found a part of himself that he had been too afraid to pull out of himself. The power of friendship allowed him to embrace that side that he had kept hidden and with the courage of those who have walked before him, he started to feel more comfortable, as himself.
It's an emotional and spiritual journey that with the love and guidance of family, he learned what it means to love and be loved in return - and to treasure the moments spent together, for you don't know how fleeting they may be. 'I was starting to understand that life was a matter of deciding what to keep alive and what to let die.' ❤️🩹❤️🩹 There was some beautiful prose that really captured the spirit of a wayward soul and one that finally discovered what it means to shed one's inhibitions and embrace themselves as they are - without guilt or remorse. I don't deny that the story had heart - it just didn't have that strong a heartbeat for me to hear. 😔
July 16, 2025
The comments on negative reviews being so rude are almost making me want to knock a star off of my review just to be petty (not going to do that because it's not the book's fault, I'm just a little contrary by nature), but sheesh people are allowed to dislike things!
The simplicity of the prose fits the nature of the text, if you're writing a letter to someone you loved you're not going to wax super literary, they know you, they know how you sound. I also enjoyed Daniel's commenting on his environment, it showed his personality and his contemplative nature.
About the 1989 parts, it was unclear to me that these parts were from Tio Daniel for far too long probably because they sounded a little too much like Daniel. I get wanting to draw a parallel but for me they didn't land or feel necessary, especially as the parallel was drawn by Daniel himself on page.
Overall it was a gentle exploration of a lot of things, from grief to being the child or immigrants with a character that was really easy to like and root for.
I went in blind with this one, I picked it up because it was in the recent releases that don't circulate much at my library, and as it turns out it was my second queer récit d'une mort annoncée read in about a week the other being Lamb: A novel in snapshots, I think I will need a lot of queer joy to make up for that one!
The simplicity of the prose fits the nature of the text, if you're writing a letter to someone you loved you're not going to wax super literary, they know you, they know how you sound. I also enjoyed Daniel's commenting on his environment, it showed his personality and his contemplative nature.
About the 1989 parts, it was unclear to me that these parts were from Tio Daniel for far too long probably because they sounded a little too much like Daniel. I get wanting to draw a parallel but for me they didn't land or feel necessary, especially as the parallel was drawn by Daniel himself on page.
Overall it was a gentle exploration of a lot of things, from grief to being the child or immigrants with a character that was really easy to like and root for.
I went in blind with this one, I picked it up because it was in the recent releases that don't circulate much at my library, and as it turns out it was my second queer récit d'une mort annoncée read in about a week the other being Lamb: A novel in snapshots, I think I will need a lot of queer joy to make up for that one!
July 17, 2024
Daniel de La Luna is a Mexican first-generation college student enrolled in a well-known East Coast university. Away from his family for the first time, it’s up to him to navigate life as a college student while also finally reckoning with something he’s known about himself for a long time, that he is gay. He quickly realizes how little he knows or has been prepared for the college experience as well as how lonely and isolated he feels in this new environment. Confronted with the overwhelming feeling of much newness, it’s a relief when Daniel meets his college roommate Sam. Despite Daniel fearing the worst due to Sam’s jock-like appearance, he turns out to be a gentle and caring anchor for Daniel in this new life immediately. Which makes it extremely easy for Daniel to fall in love with Sam. The story that results isn’t necessarily one of Daniel and Sam’s love only but also of making connections from the past to the present through grief. It’s about challenging how men express love and feelings. It’s about how there’s space to truly expressing feelings, grief has space to transform into something that can sort of look like healing instead of destruction.
How We Named the Stars is one of those books I would list under “books that challenged me”. It’s a book I read that made me sit with and question my reactions to it while I was reading it. Throughout the story I found myself thinking “that’s impossible” or rolling my eyes yet when I questioned why in those moments I was feeling that way, it always landed during the moments of the book when the male characters expressed affection. Daniel had a loving grandfather who not only dotted on him with affection but also cared about his life & was involved. His father was equally as loving in this way. Then when Daniel came out to his family he was embraced & met with acceptance. After recognizing these moments which I felt or labeled “impossible”, I felt sad that life only ever let me imagine the opposite. That a story like this could feel “impossible” when everyday there are families that openly accept & love their queer children immediately. That there are Mexican families that can express & communicate their feelings. The tenderness of this novel hit the parts of my heart that I didn’t know had hardened a bit & for that I’m grateful.
How We Named the Stars is one of those books I would list under “books that challenged me”. It’s a book I read that made me sit with and question my reactions to it while I was reading it. Throughout the story I found myself thinking “that’s impossible” or rolling my eyes yet when I questioned why in those moments I was feeling that way, it always landed during the moments of the book when the male characters expressed affection. Daniel had a loving grandfather who not only dotted on him with affection but also cared about his life & was involved. His father was equally as loving in this way. Then when Daniel came out to his family he was embraced & met with acceptance. After recognizing these moments which I felt or labeled “impossible”, I felt sad that life only ever let me imagine the opposite. That a story like this could feel “impossible” when everyday there are families that openly accept & love their queer children immediately. That there are Mexican families that can express & communicate their feelings. The tenderness of this novel hit the parts of my heart that I didn’t know had hardened a bit & for that I’m grateful.
November 9, 2025
J’aurais adoré si j’avais 15 ans ! C’était très long
April 30, 2024
How We Named the Stars left me in tears! This book was a beautiful, but also heartbreaking, story of love, loss, and self discovery.
I hope one day I get to experience my first love for another man, in the same way that Daniel got to experience his love for Sam; intense, genuine, new, and fragile. Even knowing one day that love might end and be replaced with pain. Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.
I hope one day I get to experience my first love for another man, in the same way that Daniel got to experience his love for Sam; intense, genuine, new, and fragile. Even knowing one day that love might end and be replaced with pain. Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.
February 22, 2024
Don't cry - Don't cry - Don't cry
That was me in the last 80 pages.
Absolutely loved the way this story was narrated, which basically recreates a tribute from one of the character (writing in first person) to the other (directly adressed in second person). Everything feels so raw and intense - gay love, pain, sorrow and grief coming in exploding waves. The writing is beautiful and suits perfectly Daniel's aspiration to be a writer. At first I was afraid the story might be a bit cliché, but once I finished it I just wanted to read the beginning again, let Daniel's growth sink in deeper and deeper. Find it in every sentence as he recalls his story. And if I re-read it entirely, no doubts I'll cry again.
That was me in the last 80 pages.
Absolutely loved the way this story was narrated, which basically recreates a tribute from one of the character (writing in first person) to the other (directly adressed in second person). Everything feels so raw and intense - gay love, pain, sorrow and grief coming in exploding waves. The writing is beautiful and suits perfectly Daniel's aspiration to be a writer. At first I was afraid the story might be a bit cliché, but once I finished it I just wanted to read the beginning again, let Daniel's growth sink in deeper and deeper. Find it in every sentence as he recalls his story. And if I re-read it entirely, no doubts I'll cry again.
August 7, 2024
4 stars; this one hit hard. Very tender at many points, with some raw emotions well written and conveyed. I won't spoil what the turning point is for the main character, nor how his story connects to the person for whom he was named, but I definitely cared for him and his family and circle right from the beginning.
Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.
Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.
Read
November 16, 2025This book had me bawling on my plane ride home. I just finished it and I already want to re-read it.
February 1, 2024
Wow wow wow. What is in the air this year?! A few weeks ago I wrote about a book I had finished and loved and said there was a good chance it might take the crown as my favorite title of 2024 even though it was only January and I felt confident about that when I wrote those words. AND THEN–I read this one.
This book’s beautiful cover and title are strong indicators of what is to come when you open it. The whole thing was, for lack of a better word, special. After finishing it, I needed a minute to absorb my emotions–it left me with the type of sadness that sat with me, made me think, and somewhere along the way that thinking transformed the sadness a bit, into a variety of both gratitude and melancholia.
Something about the story felt almost sacred to read and the writing was STUNNING. It’s raw and real and it makes complete sense that Ordorica is a poet because there is a deeply beautiful poetic undertone to the whole thing. I read often through the lens of someone who dreams to write their own book (I’m working on it) and I was so swept up in both the moving way that Ordorica told Daniel and Sam’s story of love and loss and my own jealousy because damn, I wish I could write like that.
I’m not one to summarize books in my reviews, but this one tackles a lot of topics and it could have felt too bogged down with density, but it didn’t. It was told delicately, with a tangible gentleness and care that you can feel throughout. I think how people interpret this will be deeply personal, but it has left an impact on me. I’m so glad I picked this up, and so impressed it’s a debut (and also sad that it seems to be a bit of a hidden gem so far–with only 63 ratings–one of which fired me up a little because of how much I disagreed.) This is a book I know I’ll remember.
This book’s beautiful cover and title are strong indicators of what is to come when you open it. The whole thing was, for lack of a better word, special. After finishing it, I needed a minute to absorb my emotions–it left me with the type of sadness that sat with me, made me think, and somewhere along the way that thinking transformed the sadness a bit, into a variety of both gratitude and melancholia.
Something about the story felt almost sacred to read and the writing was STUNNING. It’s raw and real and it makes complete sense that Ordorica is a poet because there is a deeply beautiful poetic undertone to the whole thing. I read often through the lens of someone who dreams to write their own book (I’m working on it) and I was so swept up in both the moving way that Ordorica told Daniel and Sam’s story of love and loss and my own jealousy because damn, I wish I could write like that.
I’m not one to summarize books in my reviews, but this one tackles a lot of topics and it could have felt too bogged down with density, but it didn’t. It was told delicately, with a tangible gentleness and care that you can feel throughout. I think how people interpret this will be deeply personal, but it has left an impact on me. I’m so glad I picked this up, and so impressed it’s a debut (and also sad that it seems to be a bit of a hidden gem so far–with only 63 ratings–one of which fired me up a little because of how much I disagreed.) This is a book I know I’ll remember.
March 15, 2024
This book bravely asks the question, “what if your situationship died?”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2024
How We Named The Stars, Andrés N. Ordorica’s debut, is about a Mexican-American teenager, Daniel, who describes himself as ‘quiet, short, geeky and brown’. When he meets his jock roommate Sam at Cayuga University (the invented name seems to be a reference to one of the Native American peoples who are part of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois confederacy in upstate New York), he’s just relieved that Sam doesn’t bully him. But after they fall in love and Daniel travels briefly back to México to keep an eye on his grandfather, his world is upended when Sam suddenly dies (this is not a spoiler, it is on the first page of the first chapter). Sadly, this novel did not work for me at all. The writing is incredibly repetitive and self-indulgent, reminiscent of Hua Hsu’s
Stay True,
which is also about a young immigrant man at an American university who suddenly loses a friend. A lot of people rated that one, though, so I’ll let you decide for yourself if this kind of thing is your bag, repeated x 100:
I was happy, and now, looking back, I am grateful I have these memories of you, that I can remember it all with such vividness. Wherever you are, are you remembering it the same way? How the birds flew overhead, weaving from branch to branch, following us as we hiked up the path. How the squirrels scaled trees, chasing one another. Everything had its purpose and understood its seasonality and temporality in that place. Just like us.
Dialogue is also clunky, as the characters have the habit of just telling each other exactly what they’re thinking (this feels especially unrealistic for Sam, who is struggling with his sexuality, and is supposedly not being honest with Daniel), and not using contractions:
“Honestly, Daniel, I am so glad you are my roommate,” you said, out of nowhere.
“What makes you say that?”
“You just make me happy. To have someone who is a genuine friend but not in my classes, or on my soccer team, or just like, you know… I know I sound drunk but what I’m trying to say is… well… at the party I was thinking how it’s nice to have a friend who is a friend because we actually get each other. You’re not like other guys, not some self-centred asshole. You’re… you are a really nice person, Daniel.”
I was dismayed to see that How We Named The Stars was picked as one of the Observer’s best debuts of 2024, where it’s billed as ‘joyfully updating the campus novel for the 21st century’ (have there not been plenty of them since the year 2000? Including many gay/immigrant/Black ones?) In the end, this felt very YA. The plot unfolds in manner of a soap opera, which makes it superficially easy to read and kept me flipping pages, but I wasn’t ultimately won over. 2.5 stars.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
I was happy, and now, looking back, I am grateful I have these memories of you, that I can remember it all with such vividness. Wherever you are, are you remembering it the same way? How the birds flew overhead, weaving from branch to branch, following us as we hiked up the path. How the squirrels scaled trees, chasing one another. Everything had its purpose and understood its seasonality and temporality in that place. Just like us.
Dialogue is also clunky, as the characters have the habit of just telling each other exactly what they’re thinking (this feels especially unrealistic for Sam, who is struggling with his sexuality, and is supposedly not being honest with Daniel), and not using contractions:
“Honestly, Daniel, I am so glad you are my roommate,” you said, out of nowhere.
“What makes you say that?”
“You just make me happy. To have someone who is a genuine friend but not in my classes, or on my soccer team, or just like, you know… I know I sound drunk but what I’m trying to say is… well… at the party I was thinking how it’s nice to have a friend who is a friend because we actually get each other. You’re not like other guys, not some self-centred asshole. You’re… you are a really nice person, Daniel.”
I was dismayed to see that How We Named The Stars was picked as one of the Observer’s best debuts of 2024, where it’s billed as ‘joyfully updating the campus novel for the 21st century’ (have there not been plenty of them since the year 2000? Including many gay/immigrant/Black ones?) In the end, this felt very YA. The plot unfolds in manner of a soap opera, which makes it superficially easy to read and kept me flipping pages, but I wasn’t ultimately won over. 2.5 stars.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
July 31, 2024
I learned about this through the Observer’s 10 best new novelists feature and requested a copy via a Northern Fiction Alliance online showcase. There’s a sweet Heartstopper vibe to the story of an unlikely romance blooming between Daniel de la Luna and Sam Morris, his roommate at the University of Cayuga (= Cornell). Sam is a hunky jock while Daniel is a nervous would-be writer who has only just become comfortable with calling himself gay.
Ordorica, also a poet, immediately sets an elegiac tone by revealing Sam’s untimely death soon after the end of their freshman year. To cope with losing the love of his life, Daniel writes this text as if it’s an extended letter to Sam, recounting the course of their relationship – from strangers to best friends to secret lovers – and telling of his summer spent in Mexico exploring his family history, especially the parallels between his life and that of his late uncle and namesake, who was brave enough to be openly gay in the early days of the AIDS crisis.
Unfortunately, solid ideas and a warm-hearted approach are swamped by a host of problems. Ordorica writes a pretty good sex scene but the rest is clichéd, purple or awkward prose (“I snapped photo after photo of you, laughing all the while from your infectious elation”; “I felt unmoored, unsettled, and utterly liminal, in a state of flux”; “I sank into my pillows, muffling my tears as my mind floundered into even deeper waves of sadness”) and stiff dialogue. The cultural references and terminology feel all wrong for 2011, let alone for the 1988 diary entries of Uncle Daniel’s. The Mexico subplot is too tidy and Daniel’s breakdown after news of Sam’s death, which appears to involve full-blown alcohol addiction, is implausibly resolved within a chapter. The characterization of the secondary figures, particularly Daniel’s trio of queer Cayuga friends, is tissue thin.
It seems likely that Ordorica channeled much of his own experience into this queer coming-of-age narrative. He may have been aiming for star-crossed lovers and a groundbreaking own voices story, but this is run-of-the-mill stuff – more like a college student’s first draft than a finished book.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Ordorica, also a poet, immediately sets an elegiac tone by revealing Sam’s untimely death soon after the end of their freshman year. To cope with losing the love of his life, Daniel writes this text as if it’s an extended letter to Sam, recounting the course of their relationship – from strangers to best friends to secret lovers – and telling of his summer spent in Mexico exploring his family history, especially the parallels between his life and that of his late uncle and namesake, who was brave enough to be openly gay in the early days of the AIDS crisis.
Unfortunately, solid ideas and a warm-hearted approach are swamped by a host of problems. Ordorica writes a pretty good sex scene but the rest is clichéd, purple or awkward prose (“I snapped photo after photo of you, laughing all the while from your infectious elation”; “I felt unmoored, unsettled, and utterly liminal, in a state of flux”; “I sank into my pillows, muffling my tears as my mind floundered into even deeper waves of sadness”) and stiff dialogue. The cultural references and terminology feel all wrong for 2011, let alone for the 1988 diary entries of Uncle Daniel’s. The Mexico subplot is too tidy and Daniel’s breakdown after news of Sam’s death, which appears to involve full-blown alcohol addiction, is implausibly resolved within a chapter. The characterization of the secondary figures, particularly Daniel’s trio of queer Cayuga friends, is tissue thin.
It seems likely that Ordorica channeled much of his own experience into this queer coming-of-age narrative. He may have been aiming for star-crossed lovers and a groundbreaking own voices story, but this is run-of-the-mill stuff – more like a college student’s first draft than a finished book.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
June 7, 2024
https://www.instagram.com/p/C760YsJg_...
A tragically beautiful coming of age that honors the everlasting, bittersweet echoes of first love, and the ways that grief completely shapes the fabric of our lives. Told in parallel narratives and overflowing with emotion, this novel is a compelling journey of self acceptance, and how we must reconcile the past in order to make the most of the future. With heartfelt and fluid prose, How We Named the Stars highlights the complexities of the heart; how memories haunt us, yet give us a comforting escape, how love is a pain worth enduring, how stories give voice to the deepest parts of our souls, the truest reflections of ourselves. This novel looks into the chasm of loss, the never ending veil that it casts, the ways that we heal, we grow, but continue to walk hand in hand with the grief that shaped us. An effective tribute to love, to family, to homelands, and to oneself.
A tragically beautiful coming of age that honors the everlasting, bittersweet echoes of first love, and the ways that grief completely shapes the fabric of our lives. Told in parallel narratives and overflowing with emotion, this novel is a compelling journey of self acceptance, and how we must reconcile the past in order to make the most of the future. With heartfelt and fluid prose, How We Named the Stars highlights the complexities of the heart; how memories haunt us, yet give us a comforting escape, how love is a pain worth enduring, how stories give voice to the deepest parts of our souls, the truest reflections of ourselves. This novel looks into the chasm of loss, the never ending veil that it casts, the ways that we heal, we grow, but continue to walk hand in hand with the grief that shaped us. An effective tribute to love, to family, to homelands, and to oneself.
January 22, 2024
I do not typically read contemporary fiction, but wow am I ecstatic that I chose How We Named the Stars as an introduction to the genre. Andres N. Ordorica’s debut novel was a tender coming of age story filled with grief, love, and self-discovery, and following Daniel’s first year of college as a first-generation Mexican American man who is growing into his identity as a gay man. Daniel is a chronic anxious overthinker, which can sometimes feel draining in a book from his POV, but Ordorica uses Daniel’s thought process to show us how deep a first love can influence decisions one makes across their entire lifetime. Ordorica does a phenomenal job showing the real ups and downs of love – be it familial, platonic, or romantic, or even self-love—and Daniel’s journey through the passion and heartache of his first year of college wrenched my heart in so many ways. What makes this story so affecting is that Ordorica does not shy away from showing the darker side of dealing with grief, and Daniel’s journey back to himself feels so real and hard-earned.
From a larger perspective, I really appreciated how Spanish was woven into the work. The chapter titles changing from Spanish to English when Daniel arrived in Mexico helped to ground me in our setting right from the start and gave a small glimpse into how Daniel began to embrace his heritage and family legacy during his time in Mexico. The use of Spanish in conversation was incredibly smooth, giving better insight to Daniel’s experience while not alienating non-Spanish speakers.
In thinking of the chapters/sections, one note I will make is that the formatting for the file had incorrect spacing, which sometimes took me out of the story as I had to determine what is part of the journal entries from Daniel’s Uncle and what was the main story. While I am certain that this will be correct for the physical copies, it did influence my reading experience.
It's hard to put into coherent words how this work affected me, but I know that I will continue to think to its lessons for a long time. The best way I can describe it is that this work made me want to go back and hug my 18/19-year-old self so tightly and love her through all the happiness, pain, and heartache she would come to know. Thank you, Andres, for giving me that.
Thank you to NetGalley, W. W. Norton & Company, and Andres N. Ordorica for an advanced copy of this work in exchange for a review.
From a larger perspective, I really appreciated how Spanish was woven into the work. The chapter titles changing from Spanish to English when Daniel arrived in Mexico helped to ground me in our setting right from the start and gave a small glimpse into how Daniel began to embrace his heritage and family legacy during his time in Mexico. The use of Spanish in conversation was incredibly smooth, giving better insight to Daniel’s experience while not alienating non-Spanish speakers.
In thinking of the chapters/sections, one note I will make is that the formatting for the file had incorrect spacing, which sometimes took me out of the story as I had to determine what is part of the journal entries from Daniel’s Uncle and what was the main story. While I am certain that this will be correct for the physical copies, it did influence my reading experience.
It's hard to put into coherent words how this work affected me, but I know that I will continue to think to its lessons for a long time. The best way I can describe it is that this work made me want to go back and hug my 18/19-year-old self so tightly and love her through all the happiness, pain, and heartache she would come to know. Thank you, Andres, for giving me that.
Thank you to NetGalley, W. W. Norton & Company, and Andres N. Ordorica for an advanced copy of this work in exchange for a review.
February 7, 2024
Tender and heartbreaking.
Read
October 14, 2024A look back with golden, gauzy nostalgia at love kintsugi’d together with grief. This is if Beckett and Cisneros wrote Brideshead as a Mary Oliver poem about a queer kid trying to figure out what to do with his one wild and precious life.
It had me in a chokehold from the first word, and I basically read it in one sitting. The prose is beautiful, befitting its poet author, and it's structured so well. To combine two stories in a sort of narrative-epistolary mix is absolutely chef's kiss for me.
I always knew what was coming, but, as evidenced by numerous tears and manly sobs, the emotional beats were never lost in the foreshadowing.
This was not subtle writing, but it is a 19-year-old. The metaphors are aggressive, and the dialogue is occasionally stilted. It all suits a 19-year-old looking back in grief and his first love.
I'm obsessed with this book and read the prologue again immediately after finishing. I think this lends itself to rereading and study more than to the frantic, one-sitting pace at which I read it.
I'm so bummed about the low-star reviews for a book that experiments with prose but creates something so beautiful. This is a story about young love; and finding your present in your past; and fragility; and vulnerability; and grief; and making space for growth and family and experiences and and
And I love this book.
I'm pouring out a mezcal for this one.
It had me in a chokehold from the first word, and I basically read it in one sitting. The prose is beautiful, befitting its poet author, and it's structured so well. To combine two stories in a sort of narrative-epistolary mix is absolutely chef's kiss for me.
I always knew what was coming, but, as evidenced by numerous tears and manly sobs, the emotional beats were never lost in the foreshadowing.
This was not subtle writing, but it is a 19-year-old. The metaphors are aggressive, and the dialogue is occasionally stilted. It all suits a 19-year-old looking back in grief and his first love.
I'm obsessed with this book and read the prologue again immediately after finishing. I think this lends itself to rereading and study more than to the frantic, one-sitting pace at which I read it.
I'm so bummed about the low-star reviews for a book that experiments with prose but creates something so beautiful. This is a story about young love; and finding your present in your past; and fragility; and vulnerability; and grief; and making space for growth and family and experiences and and
And I love this book.
I'm pouring out a mezcal for this one.
March 17, 2024
The essential story is sweet and sad…unfortunately, the writing is mediocre (repetitive, overwrought, often cliched). Yes, it tugged at my heartstrings…but even for me the sentimentality was ultimately cloying.
February 16, 2024
I am not well. This book was heartbreaking in some parts, but I loved it nonetheless. I would love to read more from this author and truly enjoyed his writing style.
April 6, 2024
I have gone back and forth with what tone to attempt to strike with this review - much like how in the story the character Sam Morris goes back and forth with what to write in his penultimate message to the main character Daniel de la Luna. As someone who has only ever dabbled in creative writing here and there, it would not be fair to the author to attempt to approach this review from an overly technical perspective. In terms of format, however, this novel was trying to do too many things at once and didn't quite deliver on very many of them. For example, presenting the perspective of the deceased uncle in short entries before the chapters was not introduced tactfully, so that it took me a few entries to figure out when the story was happening and what those entries were. It distracted from the main story. The story of the uncle - a Mexican man growing up at the height of the AIDS epidemic in staunchly Catholic, machista Mexico - could be its own novel, but by relegating it into awkwardly placed entries at the beginning of chapters that, quite frankly, dragged at times, it made me wish that I was reading that story instead. Overall, this novel reads like a commercial young adult piece, but its sensual portrayals of gay love and other themes make it clear that it was trying to be something more mature, something approaching literature, perhaps.
The novel shines in the potential that its themes had, which were what made me buy it in the first place. A poor, Latino boy born in the 90s goes to college on a scholarship and falls in love with a white scion of upper-middle class privilege. I guess I wanted this novel to take on what this meant on a deeper level, instead of focusing on Daniel's pining for Sam, a character that didn't feel worth pining over (except for the fact that the author goes out of his way to tell us how hot he is). There's a fine balance I’m trying to strike as a reader judging a story based on what I was expecting or felt as I was reading it, and what it feels like the author intended it to be (which is kind of unknowable, despite what high school English teachers will have you believe). Perhaps the author intentionally set this novel pre-2016, pre-Trump so as not to be weighed down by the heaviness of those years for the immigrant community, but its well-intentioned preachiness (emphasizing safe sex, providing bits and pieces of college campus queer culture, and making the only local townspeople we're introduced to in Ithaca Trumpian bigots) is the closest it comes to making a grander point about what it means to be Latino and queer in present-day America. Its most powerful statement is more about self-acceptance and trusting the process, despite the expectations of those around you. But as a gay Latino born in the 90s who went to college on a scholarship, I wanted it to be more than just a clichéd, unfulfilled, and needlessly tragic gay romance in the mold of a young adult narrative. Like come on, nobody else thought it was kind of wild how Sam rejects Daniel's love, DIES, and then turns out he was "ready for love," but his message happened to land in Daniel's spam box, thus precipitating a hard-to-read mental breakdown because he feels like he could have prevented it? To me, that felt like narrative whiplash and contrived. It also isn’t the only example of this happening in the novel.
It's true that it’s not fair to put the entire weight of the immigrant narrative on every novel. Some stories aren’t trying to do all that and are meant to be read more for fun. Except that I do think this novel wasn’t trying to be light-hearted – it was trying to really say something. Currently, American letters is finally starting to get a more consistent and varied influx of representative, multicultural voices. This should be celebrated and encouraged, but as a reader who is personally invested in this sociocultural movement, I don't think that offering a narrative that mirrors many cultural elements I personally relate to can substitute for a narrative that knows what it wants to say and says it artfully, thus presenting an authentic, nuanced perspective of the American, Latino immigrant community that I grew up in and cherish.
The novel shines in the potential that its themes had, which were what made me buy it in the first place. A poor, Latino boy born in the 90s goes to college on a scholarship and falls in love with a white scion of upper-middle class privilege. I guess I wanted this novel to take on what this meant on a deeper level, instead of focusing on Daniel's pining for Sam, a character that didn't feel worth pining over (except for the fact that the author goes out of his way to tell us how hot he is). There's a fine balance I’m trying to strike as a reader judging a story based on what I was expecting or felt as I was reading it, and what it feels like the author intended it to be (which is kind of unknowable, despite what high school English teachers will have you believe). Perhaps the author intentionally set this novel pre-2016, pre-Trump so as not to be weighed down by the heaviness of those years for the immigrant community, but its well-intentioned preachiness (emphasizing safe sex, providing bits and pieces of college campus queer culture, and making the only local townspeople we're introduced to in Ithaca Trumpian bigots) is the closest it comes to making a grander point about what it means to be Latino and queer in present-day America. Its most powerful statement is more about self-acceptance and trusting the process, despite the expectations of those around you. But as a gay Latino born in the 90s who went to college on a scholarship, I wanted it to be more than just a clichéd, unfulfilled, and needlessly tragic gay romance in the mold of a young adult narrative. Like come on, nobody else thought it was kind of wild how Sam rejects Daniel's love, DIES, and then turns out he was "ready for love," but his message happened to land in Daniel's spam box, thus precipitating a hard-to-read mental breakdown because he feels like he could have prevented it? To me, that felt like narrative whiplash and contrived. It also isn’t the only example of this happening in the novel.
It's true that it’s not fair to put the entire weight of the immigrant narrative on every novel. Some stories aren’t trying to do all that and are meant to be read more for fun. Except that I do think this novel wasn’t trying to be light-hearted – it was trying to really say something. Currently, American letters is finally starting to get a more consistent and varied influx of representative, multicultural voices. This should be celebrated and encouraged, but as a reader who is personally invested in this sociocultural movement, I don't think that offering a narrative that mirrors many cultural elements I personally relate to can substitute for a narrative that knows what it wants to say and says it artfully, thus presenting an authentic, nuanced perspective of the American, Latino immigrant community that I grew up in and cherish.
December 22, 2023
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted ARC
When Daniel de La Luna arrives as the first in his family to attend college, he feels woefully out of place. But his outgoing, athletic, and attractive roommate, Sam, is a beacon of light that helps Daniel through the first uncertain months. Even as their relationship deepens, the duo is pulled apart, first because of Sam's hesitation and then due to Daniel's family emergency. Will they find their way back to each other?
STARS is a hauntingly beautiful and gutwrenching coming-of-age story that covers plenty of ground, from race, class, and sexuality to loss and grief. The story is written from Daniel's perspective and addressed to Sam in the second person, retrospectively referencing their first year in college. I love this type of new adult novel where the MC looks back in time, which helps add more maturity to the narrative.
There's so much to love about STARS. I loved Daniel's inner monologue that reminds me of my overthinking self 🤣 Moreover, Daniel's relationship with his family—especially with his grandfather—warmed my heart and made me tear up. I also appreciate Ordorica's emphasis that one doesn't need big gestures to announce one's sexuality but rather to have a supportive community to show unwavering love in uncertain times.
Another profound aspect is the juxtaposition between being closeted in America and Mexico. Ordorica brilliantly compares Sam, a wealthy white athlete, and Daniel, an introverted Brown scholarship student, and their journeys to accepting & exploring their sexuality.
The author's note also adds so much insight to STARS. Ordorica's thoughts on how we unearth our hidden legacies & honor them is a beautiful message that will stay with me for a long time. I finished STARS with tears and the insight: don't let grief destroy us; let it set us free.
For fans of THE RACHEL INCIDENT (Caroline O'Donoghue), don't miss this tender and lyrical debut novel of first love.
When Daniel de La Luna arrives as the first in his family to attend college, he feels woefully out of place. But his outgoing, athletic, and attractive roommate, Sam, is a beacon of light that helps Daniel through the first uncertain months. Even as their relationship deepens, the duo is pulled apart, first because of Sam's hesitation and then due to Daniel's family emergency. Will they find their way back to each other?
STARS is a hauntingly beautiful and gutwrenching coming-of-age story that covers plenty of ground, from race, class, and sexuality to loss and grief. The story is written from Daniel's perspective and addressed to Sam in the second person, retrospectively referencing their first year in college. I love this type of new adult novel where the MC looks back in time, which helps add more maturity to the narrative.
There's so much to love about STARS. I loved Daniel's inner monologue that reminds me of my overthinking self 🤣 Moreover, Daniel's relationship with his family—especially with his grandfather—warmed my heart and made me tear up. I also appreciate Ordorica's emphasis that one doesn't need big gestures to announce one's sexuality but rather to have a supportive community to show unwavering love in uncertain times.
Another profound aspect is the juxtaposition between being closeted in America and Mexico. Ordorica brilliantly compares Sam, a wealthy white athlete, and Daniel, an introverted Brown scholarship student, and their journeys to accepting & exploring their sexuality.
The author's note also adds so much insight to STARS. Ordorica's thoughts on how we unearth our hidden legacies & honor them is a beautiful message that will stay with me for a long time. I finished STARS with tears and the insight: don't let grief destroy us; let it set us free.
For fans of THE RACHEL INCIDENT (Caroline O'Donoghue), don't miss this tender and lyrical debut novel of first love.
January 28, 2024
This is the second novel that I have read where the protagonist addresses a dead loved one in second-person, and I find that it really works for me. It's an effective way to create intimacy and absence, and I really felt the connection that Daniel was trying to hold with Sam. The prologue was stunning, and a fantastic way to introduce Sam's voice in order to round him out, instead of only seeing him through Daniel's perspective and Ordorica's writing is poetic throughout. I found the dialogue a bit stilted, which made it more difficult to have a concept of the other characters, because it felt like all of their voices sounded similar, but the feel I got for Daniel and Sam was real, and I did cry.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-ARC!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-ARC!
March 22, 2024
!!!!!!!!! Precious and emotional and just everything that was so wonderful and perfect about love and loving someone else. Written in letters from one partner to his future deceased partner. And the time they spent together in their short amount they had. Ugh so good. Tender and discovery and just so many great feelings but also sad.
The perfect combo of Heartstopper and Aristotle written for an adult audience!!!
The perfect combo of Heartstopper and Aristotle written for an adult audience!!!
February 23, 2025
Yes, I was convinced this was largely autobiographical because the feelings were so intense and vulnerable—wrenching. Daniel’s longing, confusion, joy and pain felt so close during the read. It was almost a confession, telling a deep inner secret. That level of intimacy was delivered through a first-person recounting (and not storycrafting). I still “believe” that Daniel retold or revealed some personal history. And I testify that I’ve lived some of what Daniel experienced. Yes, it’s that real! I thought of the song, “Killing Me Softly.”
The first-person perspective includes Daniel often stating “I (did this)…” and “you (did that)…” because he’s addressing Sam as he recounts their story. It’s what we do when we remind someone of the sequence of events, how we each responded or acted, what we said to each other. The frequency “you (did x, y, or z)…” was jarring at first; I thought it felt like an accusation. Then those statements forced me to see Sam more closely from Daniel’s vantage point. And that proximity magnified Daniel’s experiences in my mind. I saw through his eyes. His distress and turmoil became mine.
The way the story built up and then wrapped up was amazing. The read took me on some journey. And if I had not been on an airplane when I finished the book, I would have been wailing instead of just crying silent tears. I’d suggest re-reading the Prologue after finishing Part III; you’ll cry even more!
This story does not pass the gay Bechdel test. At least the death is revealed first thing in the first sentence of Day One. We know it will happen.
I thank Andres for writing this exceptional book. I was choking with tears during the last part but I had already gone into some deeper emotional journey once it was June/Junio. Daniel’s abuelo was amazing and how Daniel connected with his Tio Daniel was particularly affecting. I completely agree with Daniel’s reflection on and appreciating his desire for a man similar to his own ethnic or racial background. It’s very powerful (and HOT!)…I find it both life-giving and life-affirming.
I definitely will read more of Andres’ work.
A few quotes:
I wanted your company. I wanted your arms to hold me. I wanted you forever. I wanted to know if you loved me. But I was still too afraid to ask. So instead I let silence take over, allowing all those wants of mine to pile up, left to be dealt with at some later date.
There was something calling from inside me, a need to give him a piece of myself. There, in the safety of our hotel room, it wasn’t about giving him my body, but giving him part of my mind, the part that had been weighing on me.
From the Acknowledgements:
To my own LGBTQ+ family members, I am so glad we exist, have always existed, and will continue to exist as branches of this ever-expanding family tree. And I hope this book might inspire you, reader, to unearth what hidden legacies are contained in your own story.
The first-person perspective includes Daniel often stating “I (did this)…” and “you (did that)…” because he’s addressing Sam as he recounts their story. It’s what we do when we remind someone of the sequence of events, how we each responded or acted, what we said to each other. The frequency “you (did x, y, or z)…” was jarring at first; I thought it felt like an accusation. Then those statements forced me to see Sam more closely from Daniel’s vantage point. And that proximity magnified Daniel’s experiences in my mind. I saw through his eyes. His distress and turmoil became mine.
The way the story built up and then wrapped up was amazing. The read took me on some journey. And if I had not been on an airplane when I finished the book, I would have been wailing instead of just crying silent tears. I’d suggest re-reading the Prologue after finishing Part III; you’ll cry even more!
This story does not pass the gay Bechdel test. At least the death is revealed first thing in the first sentence of Day One. We know it will happen.
I thank Andres for writing this exceptional book. I was choking with tears during the last part but I had already gone into some deeper emotional journey once it was June/Junio. Daniel’s abuelo was amazing and how Daniel connected with his Tio Daniel was particularly affecting. I completely agree with Daniel’s reflection on and appreciating his desire for a man similar to his own ethnic or racial background. It’s very powerful (and HOT!)…I find it both life-giving and life-affirming.
I definitely will read more of Andres’ work.
A few quotes:
I wanted your company. I wanted your arms to hold me. I wanted you forever. I wanted to know if you loved me. But I was still too afraid to ask. So instead I let silence take over, allowing all those wants of mine to pile up, left to be dealt with at some later date.
There was something calling from inside me, a need to give him a piece of myself. There, in the safety of our hotel room, it wasn’t about giving him my body, but giving him part of my mind, the part that had been weighing on me.
From the Acknowledgements:
To my own LGBTQ+ family members, I am so glad we exist, have always existed, and will continue to exist as branches of this ever-expanding family tree. And I hope this book might inspire you, reader, to unearth what hidden legacies are contained in your own story.
October 31, 2025
i love sad gays
*
reminded me of two of my characters' dynamic. lots of highlights for feelings and thoughts that relate to them.
hispanic heritage badge achieved
*
reminded me of two of my characters' dynamic. lots of highlights for feelings and thoughts that relate to them.
hispanic heritage badge achieved
August 18, 2025
3.5 rounded up. felt a bit too YA/juvenile at times which isn’t really my genre anymore but makes sense since daniel is 18/19. very emotional and heart-wrenching, but i loved the emphasis on themes of family and memory.
May 22, 2025
Giving this a very generous three stars because of how easy it was to power through and read.
I think in the end the thing that frustrated me the most about this book was the way that themes were just picked up and dropped so quickly, without any exploration. Made it all feel quite shallow
Some phrases in here that I would love to forget, but unfortunately I will never be able to
Ultimately, made for great book club content so will be grateful for that!
I think in the end the thing that frustrated me the most about this book was the way that themes were just picked up and dropped so quickly, without any exploration. Made it all feel quite shallow
Some phrases in here that I would love to forget, but unfortunately I will never be able to
Ultimately, made for great book club content so will be grateful for that!
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