How We Named The Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica

How We Named The Stars is the debut novel by Ordorica, about a Mexican American boy who goes to college and falls in love, and then has deal with heartbreak and loss. Daniel de La Luna moves from California to Ithaca, New York to start college, where he, feeling out of place, meets his new roommate, athletic Sam. Despite seeming like the opposite of Daniel, they quickly become close, and then in love, as the first year of college speeds away from them, but by the end of the year, they are separated. Daniel’s summer in Mexico unearths his family’s past, and then tragedy forces Daniel to reckon with the dead.

Having read Ordorica’s poetry, I was excited for this novel, and it surpassed my expectations, as a tender coming of age novel that explores how to move forward with heartbreak and grief, drawing strength from family and friends and a sense of queer community that spans time. It is told as Daniel’s recollections, narrating to Sam, with each chapter started by a diary snippet from Daniel’s uncle, who died before he was born. Through this perspective, you find out early on what happens at the tragic climax of the book, so the narrative is built around getting there, and then moving past it. Unlike some coming of age books featuring death and grief, this one felt complex and careful, asking what it means to keep going on living, especially when someone dies young.

There’s also a fantastic sense of queer community throughout the novel, from Daniel immediately finding gay friends when he starts college to ideas of cross-generational community even when you cannot ever meet someone. Even though it is romantic love at the centre of the book, it is also very much about queer friendship and about different kinds of friendship and love between people, and about learning about those as you grow up. At the same time, it is also about finding people like you, as Daniel is constantly realising how vital it is for him to find both people and writing that go beyond the straight, White experience.

Both the college and Mexico settings are vividly realised and this is a bittersweet book that doesn’t wallow in tragedy, but instead depicts sadness, love, and healing in a multifaceted way. How We Named The Stars is a gripping novel powered by character that feels like the next part of the lineage of queer coming of age literary fiction.