How We Named the Stars

Starred review from October 9, 2023
Poet Ordorica (At Least This I Know) makes his fiction debut with a heartbreaking tale of a first-generation college student exploring his sexuality and roots while reckoning with grief. Daniel De La Luna, who is secretly gay and a virgin, enters the fictional Cayuga College in Ithaca, N.Y., feeling like an outsider. He finds some measure of acceptance from his “brutally attractive” roommate, soccer player Sam Morris, who is also in the closet, and who the reader learns early on will die during their first summer break (the circumstances are revealed later). On a camping trip, Daniel “overflow with desire” for Sam, but is afraid to make a move and thus ruin their friendship. They share a drunken kiss, after which Daniel is wracked by guilt, regret, and fear. He senses that “the man of his dreams is bound to break his heart,” and an email from Sam at the end of freshman year does just that, as Sam suggests they break off contact because he’s not ready to explore his sexuality any further. Daniel heads to Chihuahua, Mexico, for the summer, where he learns more about his late uncle who was out and proud, and whom he was named after. While there, Daniel begins dating the rich and handsome Diego, but this promising relationship hits the skids after Daniel learns of Sam’s death. Another, equally devastating revelation causes Daniel to spiral. Ordorica portrays Daniel and Sam’s encounters with tenderness and heat, and Daniel’s aching and poignant narration, which seamlessly alternates between addressing the reader and speaking directly to Sam, is chock-full of wisdom. This is dazzling. Agent: Caro Clarke, Portobello.

November 1, 2023
It's 2011 when freshmen Daniel and Sam, two uprooted Californians, meet as roommates at Cayuga University in Ithaca, New York. Daniel is a quiet and shy Mexican American nerd and a scholarship student. Sam is a gregarious and popular golden-boy athlete who helps Daniel navigate this intimidating world. Their friendship evolves into love, only to end in tragedy. Bereft, Daniel decides tell their love story, addressing his narrative to Sam in order to remember and hold close everything that happened between them before Sam's death. Each chapter records each month of that fateful year, with Daniel mulling over every detail and thought of their all-too-brief time together. His telling is deeply influenced by his summer trip to Mexico with his grandfather. There he learns about the uncle he's named after; another gay man who died too young. Excerpts from his uncle's diary documenting his experiences in the late 1980s preface each chapter with soulful ponderings about the challenges of living life openly. First-time novelist Ordorica delves into love and loss in two places and two times to powerful effect.

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Starred review from November 15, 2023
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 "na�ve 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 T�o 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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