Book Review: "How We Named the Stars" by Andrés N. Ordorica

“I thought about how, for so much of my life, I’d survived by staying quiet, making myself small enough to fly under the radar. I decided then that I no longer wanted to be quiet. I wanted to be loud and colorful and every piece of myself at any one time.”

Daniel is a scholarship student at a prestigious college in upstate New York. He is the first in his family to go to college, and the pressure to live up to the hopes and expectations of his parents and grandfather, who left Mexico before he was born. Daniel is also ready to be the person he’s always known he should be, someone confident and comfortable with his sexuality.

It’s not long before their easy friendship evolves into something sexual, but Sam isn’t quite able to give Daniel all he wants from a relationship. At the end of freshman year they go their separate ways, and Daniel is without Sam. And when an unspeakable tragedy occurs, Daniel must figure out how to cope. So he spends the summer in Mexico with his grandfather, learning more about his late uncle Daniel, for whom he was named and who, it seems, was quite similar to him.

This was gorgeous, emotional, and so moving. It’s incredible that this is a debut novel. I honestly hadn't heard of this book until shortly before I picked it up, and I'm so thankful for that! I fell in love with everything it made me think and feel.