The kind of debut that launches a career, Andrés N. Ordorica's How We Named The Stars is beautiful and devastating, a tender and timeless tale about queer love, family and secrets. Inspired by the author's own experiences, this story tugs on the heartstrings with immensely human characters and a genuine examination of love and loss.
A Best Book of January at The Washington Post,Kirkus Reviews, and Alta Journal
"A touching story about a transformative queer romance."—The New York Time Books Review
Named One of the 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2024 by The Observer(UK)
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 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.
Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx poet, writer, and educator. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and his own third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there). He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.
It’s about that time — we’re only a month out from The Tortured Poets Department and we know you’re feeling just as antsy as we are. With no more Eras show links to flip between until May (featuring one of our favorite Album of the Month artists, Paramore, as the opener for her May dates) […]
After hearing the great news from Punxsutawney Phil and subsequently having our friends in the Northeast get slammed by a snowstorm, we could all use a solid set of recs. From some of our very favorite B&N picks to delightful narrative nonfiction (with fabulous episodes on Poured Over) to a deep dive into one of […]
This month’s Discover author, Andrés N. Ordorica, penned an insightful essay for us on the inspiration for his debut novel, How We Named the Stars. A tender story of love and grief, Ordorica brings us behind the scenes of how his novel came to be. Here’s Andrés, in his own words. Some of my favorite […]
With a new year comes stacks of exciting new fiction to look forward to. Some of these authors are fresh on the publishing scene while others are familiar names trying something novel for a change. Whatever the case, we’re thrilled to give you a carefully curated list of our favorite brand new stories to keep […]
Are you obsessively listening to Taylor Swift’s Midnights on repeat? So am I! And since it’s on repeat, I sat down with some fellow Swiftie booksellers, and we came up with this list of books to build your Midnights#TBR with books for every track. So, get ready to vibe because these books paired with Taylor Swift’s sound and lyricism have our hearts absolutely captivated.
