Daniel de La Luna has spent his first 18 years in California. The son of Mexican immigrants, he will be the first person in his family to attend college, having received a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious university in Ithaca, New York. An aspiring writer, Daniel hopes that college will give him the time and space to explore new possibilities. He’s gay, though he's not out to his family or friends. So when he meets two other queer students during orientation, he encounters new models of how to embrace and celebrate all facets of identity. Rob and Mona's openness about their sexuality is both frightening and liberating for Daniel.

When Daniel meets his roommate, Sam, he's instantly attracted to him, though at first they are just friends. Sam's blond handsomeness, athletic persona and popularity on campus make Daniel question not only the authenticity of their friendship, but also the possibility that Sam might reciprocate his attraction. All the signs are there, but Daniel is not sure he should even ask if their burgeoning friendship might become something more.

"HOW WE NAMED THE STARS soars. It’s a clear-eyed and sometimes viscerally painful portrait of the intensity of first love and its aftermath, and of finding ways to survive profound loss and carry on with tempered joy."

When at last the two become physically intimate, ecstasy quickly turns to confusion when Sam seems to reject Daniel near the end of the academic year. A confused Daniel decides to follow his abuelo on a trip to the family home in Chihuahua, Mexico --- only to encounter a tragedy that will upend his life even more.

Daniel's story unfolds in a plaintive narrative addressed to the absent Sam, recalling the shapes of their relationship and mourning its loss. This contemporary account is interspersed with excerpts from the journals of Daniel's uncle (also named Daniel) from when he was a young man in Chihuahua, grappling with how to seize the freedom to be fully himself.

HOW WE NAMED THE STARS is a powerful and at times wrenching account of love built and then shattered, of a young man encountering profound loss for the first time in his life. However, it's also a hopeful novel, particularly when author Andrés N. Ordorica contrasts the possibilities available to present-day Daniel with those faced by his uncle 25 years earlier, as well as the ways in which Daniel receives acceptance and grace from his abuelo.

Ordorica is a published poet, and his use of lyrical language helps elevate his debut novel. Daniel and Sam's emotional intimacy becomes most heightened when they spend time in nature --- camping together during their fall break, enjoying a run through fresh snow --- and the prose crystallizes these moments of beauty and delight: "Just as we were gearing up to head home, the two wrens took off in flight. Their warbles echoed against the stark silence, their brown feathers fluttered bright against the snow… [T]hey were flying side by side, the tips of their wings just touching. It was as if they were holding hands in the air, searching together, trying to find their place in that city on the hill."

Much like those wrens, HOW WE NAMED THE STARS soars. It’s a clear-eyed and sometimes viscerally painful portrait of the intensity of first love and its aftermath, and of finding ways to survive profound loss and carry on with tempered joy.