How We Named the Stars
Andrés N. Ordorica
Book of the month: July 2024
Reviewed by Olivia Calderón
Andrés N. Ordorica’s How We Named the Stars is a debut novel which cuts to the truth of questioning your place in the world. The story follows Daniel de la Luna, a Californian scholarship student starting his freshman year in New York. His roommate is Sam, a golden-haired student athlete. The story showcases the development of their relationship throughout the year, culminating in a declaration of love right before they part ways. While their connection deepens, Daniel makes new friends who push him to centre himself in his family’s narrative and make peace with their past.
The queer love story that unfolds is not just outward with Sam, but inward as well, charting protagonist Daniel’s evolution as he learns to love himself unapologetically. Ordorica’s background as a poet is evident throughout this novel – his first poetry collection, At Least This I Know, tackles similar themes of self-pilgrimage and queerness through a personal, lyrical lens. Poetic language spills into his prose. One of my favourite examples of this comes as a diary entry:
Today at school I kissed a boy, and he kissed me back. Then we kissed together, and we didn’t die. The sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and we had kissed, and I was happy. Today, I kissed a boy and finally understood what it means when you can 100 percent, without a doubt, say, “I am free.”
Ordorica’s language is so sincere throughout, from diary entries to Sam and Daniel’s relationship. It feels authentic to the queer experience, the Latine experience, and the growing pains of becoming who one is meant to be. There is such care in the telling of this story; a poet’s emotion is masterfully woven throughout, leaving readers with a profound impact on every page.
Connecting to oneself through the past, through a homeland, is a pillar of the Latine experience, and a prominent theme in the second half of the book. Finding acceptance of the present through the past is something young Latines are constantly grappling with. We carry our family histories, hold them close and learn to balance that history with our futures. The past often carries deep wounds, connections lost, and Ordorica shows that it is possible to find solace in that pain, joy in the privilege of knowing. It does not matter if you are young, like Daniel and Sam, or older, like Don Omar, Daniel’s abuelo, and Sonia, Daniel’s mother.
The novel is an odyssey, a journey home, especially when Daniel moves across the country, back to his homeland in Mexico, and ultimately, back to the beginning at Cayuga. The growth Ordorica showcases is not just limited to Daniel; it encompasses the community around him. From Don Omar accepting Daniel and his uncle as gay to Sam claiming the bravery to love Daniel openly, there is something healing about watching a community connect through not just loss, but a reclamation of joy.
The parallel between Daniel and his Tió Daniel is particularly impactful. Daniel never had the opportunity to know his uncle, who died young. Still, he is constantly told they are exactly alike, from their physical appearance to a shared open curiosity for the world. Each chapter starts with a diary entry – at first, I thought they were Daniel’s own, but I came to realise they were Tió Daniel’s. As we get to know them both, through diary entries and Daniel’s own writing, the lines blur, and they become indistinguishable extensions of each other. The parallel between Tió Daniel, who died too young, and Daniel, young and just about to start truly living, is moving.
At its core, this book is about love: familial, platonic, romantic, and self. It ripples throughout the pages; the love Daniel has for his abuelo, Sonia’s love for her brother, Sam’s mother for Daniel, Daniel’s love for Chihuahua. The village is everything. To be connected by such ley lines is a gift, one that is not always recognised. But in How We Named the Stars, it’s all one can see – the brightness of human connection, stretching across geography and time.
How We Named the Stars is published by Saraband. Order here.
Olivia Calderón is a Cuban American poet based in Edinburgh. In 2023 she was shortlisted for the Grierson Verse Prize, and graduated with her MSc in Creative Writing. She is currently the managing editor for Outcrop Poetry.