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A college romance between two closeted young men spirals into a border-crossing story of tragic death, family secrets, and unexpected revelations.Daniel Manuel de La Luna is the son of Mexican immigrants, a queer first-generation college student who's woefully inexperienced in love-he's described as a "naïve little cherub." Timid and excited but uncertain what to expect, Daniel encounters his first campus surprise in the form of his roommate, Sam Morris, an attractive, athletic legacy admission who turns out to be funny and kind. The two partake in the usual first-year activities, going to parties and struggling with academic pressure, but they also share a number of intimate moments, including a very amusing scene during a camping trip that involves raucous bonding, morning spooning, and involuntary tumescence. This all launches a precarious, tender, adventurous romance, until Sam pulls back and decides to join a frat. While its depiction of college life is appealing, the novel really takes off when Sam and Daniel part ways after freshman year, and Daniel returns to Mexico with his family. There, he learns of Sam's death (which is revealed in the book's first pages) and must confront his own desires, his family's past, and the truth about his namesake, an uncle named Daniel who was also gay. Ordorica cleverly intersperses excerpts from TÃo Daniel's letters as epigraphs to each chapter like a series of breadcrumbs that lead readers to discover the truth themselves, drawing them into the novel's expertly depicted world.Told with authenticity and compassion, this unconventional love story redefines notions of fraternity.
Kirkus ReviewsA college romance between two closeted young men spirals into a border-crossing story of tragic death, family secrets, and unexpected revelations.Daniel Manuel de La Luna is the son of Mexican immigrants, a queer first-generation college student who's woefully inexperienced in love-he's described as a "naïve little cherub." Timid and excited but uncertain what to expect, Daniel encounters his first campus surprise in the form of his roommate, Sam Morris, an attractive, athletic legacy admission who turns out to be funny and kind. The two partake in the usual first-year activities, going to parties and struggling with academic pressure, but they also share a number of intimate moments, including a very amusing scene during a camping trip that involves raucous bonding, morning spooning, and involuntary tumescence. This all launches a precarious, tender, adventurous romance, until Sam pulls back and decides to join a frat. While its depiction of college life is appealing, the novel really takes off when Sam and Daniel part ways after freshman year, and Daniel returns to Mexico with his family. There, he learns of Sam's death (which is revealed in the book's first pages) and must confront his own desires, his family's past, and the truth about his namesake, an uncle named Daniel who was also gay. Ordorica cleverly intersperses excerpts from TÃo Daniel's letters as epigraphs to each chapter like a series of breadcrumbs that lead readers to discover the truth themselves, drawing them into the novel's expertly depicted world.Told with authenticity and compassion, this unconventional love story redefines notions of fraternity.
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Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
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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 questions: 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.