Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange is a followup to his book There, There.
In 1964, after the Sand Creek Massacre, Star is sent to a school for Native Americans to be taught about Christianity and erase his tribal education. With interspersed chapters, we learn about Star and his descendants. In 2018, Opal is trying to care for her nephew Orvil in the aftermath of the shooting that almost took his life.
This book is so intricate and I loved the historical sections where we get to see the history of Orvil's family and how they ended up where they are. I also appreciate that we get to see the aftermath of the events in the last book.

Wandering Star was such an enlightening book. The story of the Bear Shield-Red Feather family, shows strength, will and endurance. At the same time, heartbreaking, as we would never hear these stories in a classroom.

We meet Jude Star in 1864 in Colorado. His family and people were killed and brutalized in the Sand Creek Massacre. The Sand Creek was a massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army. When a 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of Colonel John Chivington attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 600 Native American people. Chivington claimed 500 to 600 warriors were killed, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. He and another young man survived this attack and now are having to figure out what to do next. This is when he and his friend are taken to Fort Marion Prison Castle. Here Star if forced to forget his indigenous beliefs, traditions and language. Instead they are forced to learn English and practice Christianity.

When Star is finally able to leaves the Fort Marion Prison Castle in Florida. We see how he navigates life on his own and how he now sees the world.

This was a great book. I would recommend this to any reader. You don’t have to be a historical fiction reader to get so much out of this book. This writing was so poetic and has such a beautiful quality that it will keep you glued to the pages. It is a multigenerational work that spans centuries and shows us the lasting scares that are passed down to each person.

Wandering Stars is another heartbreaking but powerful book about Native Americans and the history of the United States. There are some references to families from There, There in the book also, but it is not necessary to have read the first book. The genealogy will be easier to follow if you have read it, however.

Amazing story! Just as with There, There, Tommy Orange leads us through the struggles of youth, family, and identity with nods to those little feelings we all feel. I have already recommended this to several literary fiction readers.

I was really looking forward to this after reading There, There. I feel like the pacing of this was what threw me off the most. There were parts that felt like they dragged, and other parts where I would’ve liked more.

I am so sad to say that I DNF'ed this book at 20%. No matter how hard I tried, I could not connect with the storyline, pacing, or characters. Tommy Orange writes beautifully but sometimes the sentences were very long and I lost interest. However, if you are a fan of poetic prose and dont mind a leisurely plot, this book might be for you.

I loved Tommy Orange's first novel, so I was excited to read "Wandering Stars." I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in Indigenous literary fiction, and those who have never read anything from an Indigenous author. If you live in the US, I think Orange's work is a great way to learn about this important history and culture. A significant part of the novel is historical fiction, so you have to get into that but if you do it's a rewarding reading experience. The strong connection between generations is one of the novel's strengths and most interesting qualities, so if you enjoy multigenerational family sagas you might love this. I read "There There" for a college course, and almost wish that I had a similar group with which to discuss this because there's a lot to unpack so to speak, and so I am excited for it to come out!

There are Consequences

We did inhumane things to Native Americans in the name of taking over (“settling”) our new property. This is not a news flash, you can look it up, there are facts and footnotes in your Wikipedia. Seems like a long time ago– what with cowboys and such…sepia picture images so far removed from life today. “Wandering Stars,” emerges with violence before author Tommy Orange depicts the ceaseless efforts to systematically eliminate any trace of Native culture. How this history effectively shackles today’s Native American is what we discover here.

In 1864, approximately 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered and mutilated in the Sand Creek massacre. “Wandering Stars” starts there, with a young Jude Star surviving the attack, only to be captured and sent to Carlisle Industrial Indian School, an infamous re-education institution tasked with assimilating Native Americans into civilized society. The school’s founder, Richard Henry Pratt, lived by the expression, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” He told students they were being taught to become Carlisle Indians, a new tribe belonging to the school and the U.S. government. The children were whitewashed, severed from any trace of their history or heritage.

This is only a portion of the book. The point is bridging the trauma of the past with today. We see subsequent generations orphaned from their past, only vaguely aware of their ancestors and their folklore. Here are people hurting today, not just mysterious tragic figures frozen in history. Drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, suicide… companions to the sustained dehumanization.

“Wandering Stars” is a prequel and sequel to Tommy Orange’s “There There,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018. You do not have to have read the first book to follow the character or buy into their stories. It is a riveting read and provides an important bridge from history to what is being dealt with today. It is enlightening.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

“The so-called Chivington or Sand Creek Massacre, in spite of certain most objectionable details, was on the whole as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC copy in exchange for this review.

Tommy Orange's *Wandering Stars* beautifully tells a story of intergenerational trauma, culture, and identity. Since the release of Orange's debut novel, I have been waiting for more work from the author, and this is an amazing sophomore novel.

Tracing a family line from the Sand Creek Massacre to modern day Oakland, we see each generation deal with the pain of the previous and their attempts to maybe do better, but at the end of the day, we are shown flaws in their attempts. There is some disconnect that can seem a little jarring when we're moving from one character's story to another, but I think that that can help differentiate between the timelines.

There's a there there, but it also shows how it's shrinking and that there can be a loss of identity if it isn't fostered. We see each character reckon with what it means to be Native to them, and in the end, that's what matters. Not what the world sees, but how they see themselves.

Tommy Orange weaves Indigenous history along with his previous novel throughout the stories that come together to make up this novel. Having grown up near Carlisle where the infamous Carlisle Indian School was, I was drawn to this part of the book, and the connection back to There There, which I also read, was an interesting element as well. Despite the difficult, yet important, subject matter, the characters and their stories were interesting. The stories didn't all feel completely connected to me, but all were compelling, albeit difficult to read due to their subject matter. I know this was an anticipated book and while it's not a perfect novel I think it overall it delivers on its promise.

📚Book review📚 :: WANDERING STARS by Tommy Orange

Story premise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Character development: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Writing style: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ending: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wandering Stars takes us back in order to move us forward. Tommy Orange first gave us the Pulitzer Prize finalist There, There, where we meet 12 characters in various stages of life, all from Native communities. They all converge at the Big Oakland Powwow, where 14 year old Orvil Red Feather finds himself clinging to life after a robbery goes awry.

But Wandering Stars doesn't start there. No, Tommy Orange carries us all the way back to 1864 to the Sand Creek Massacre where we meet a teenager named Jude Star. He escapes narrowly with his life but is captured and sent to prison where he is forced to shed his native culture by the man who would go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School -- an infamous boarding school created to force the assimilation of Native children. This man and his school would go on to brutalize thousands of children, including Jude Star's son. And it is this history, this lineage of ancestral trauma and systematic violence that trickles down through the years and lands squarely on Orvil Red Feather, his grandmas and his brothers.

There, There was a groundbreaking novel but Wandering Stars is earth shattering.

I usually start a review with what I think the heart of the book is but for this one, the only place I can even think to start is with the writing. Orange is a master of his craft. There were sentences, single sentences, that drew tears from my eyes. The chapters of the book change perspective, narrator and even style. The structure, the voice -- everything -- changes in such a beautiful way depending on whose story is being told. Orange writes with equal brilliance as a high schooler in the throes of addiction as he does an elderly woman trying to wade through her regrets.

Orange uses his near perfect prose to provide insight into the struggles of a people who are not a monolith but who are all crawling out from under the weight of American history. Like in There, There, the characters of Wandering Stars are consumed by the day to day of their lives. But in Wandering Stars, we have been handed a road map to travel back in time to witness the pain that will be carried on in the blood of the Star, later Red Feather, family. In doing so, we as the readers can look at their lives from a unique perspective. It's this sweeping view and it's insight into breaking generational cycles that makes this book so powerful.

Wandering Stars is about what being Native means to Native people. It's about their constant search for an identity as identities are stripped away from them and then forced upon them. Where does the land fit into their identity? Community? Language? Feathers? Addiction? They're questions Orange doesn't have answers to but the questions in themselves and the characters' search for resolution provides a kind of healing.

I'm grateful that Orange has given the world this opportunity to better understand the lived experiences of some Native people. We are all better off because of books like Wandering Stars, not only because of the beauty it is made out of but for the knowledge it is willing to impart.

An absolute crushing story worthy of being the sequel to “There There”. It should be no surprise when Tommy Orange finds himself yet again on the Pulitzer list with this stunning novel.

Tommy Orange returns with a new book release that is both a prequel and a sequel to his bestselling novel, There There. In 2018, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield struggles to hold her family together in the aftermath of her grandson Orvil's shooting at the Oakland Powwow. In Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange takes you through Opal's family history, as each generation faces discrimination and addiction.

Although I enjoyed There There, I had a difficult time reading Tommy Orange's sequel/prequel, Wandering Stars. The first third of the novel showcased disjointed snippets of Opal's ancestors which are told as reflections on their memories. Then the novel settles into the present day, following Opal and her grandchildren in the aftermath of the shooting at the end of There There. Overall, Wandering Stars was too disjointed and high brow for my taste, mainly focusing on each character's internal thoughts.

Rounded up from 4.5 stars
Tommy Orange is a master of stream-of-consciousness narration. Writing through the thoughts of multiple individuals, not to mention multiple generations, and giving them their own personalities, their own distinct voice, is truly incredible.
Wandering Stars is also a shining example of "learn the rules so you can break them". Switching POV's, page-long run-on sentences, introducing characters abruptly, etc. Orange does it all with grace, his writing reading like a breath you can't quite catch.
Only not five stars because the novel did feel very heavy for me, and at times I found it hard to want to pick it up. This book has a gravity all it's own and some days it pulled me in and some days I was rocketed out of it's orbit.

Hate to say, but this book felt like a bit of a sophomore slump. Maybe I just had too high expectations after There There, but while that book was propulsive and gripping, this one felt a little unmoored and meandering, and I found myself not itching to pick it up. That said, the book still had moments of real heartbreak and insight (particularly in the modern day chapters), and some sentences knocked me out. So while this one fell a little short for me, I’ll still be first in line to read his next one.

This is an amazing book with an almost kaleidoscopic feel. The swirls and turnings of plot, the hunger for things that seem real but mostly are not. The family and culture that is behind and beyond everything. A powerful and sobering experience. Thank you Tommy Orange.

A beautiful breathtaking book. I waited so long for another book and this did not disappoint. Descriptive, mind blowing details and an unputdownable book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Tommy Orange is one of the most compelling authors I've ever read. He takes the tragic and makes it beautiful; he takes what's specific and makes it universal. It's impossible to read his work and not feel it sink inside you and inevitably change you.

Wandering Stars picks up after the shocking end of There There, and traces the way the world continues to test, break, and offer the chance to heal to the Red Feather family. Orvil is struggling to recover physically and mentally, Loother disconnects from them all, and Lony is trying to find what he believes in and what to do with it. It's a dark journey through unhealthy coping mechanisms, addiction, identity, and ultimately that with enough time everything comes back.

The beginning may seem a little off putting at first as it's hard to stay in the past when you want to rush to find out what's happening in the present, but seeing the thread of history and intergenerational trauma that leads to the Red Feathers of the present gives the story and their struggles even more weight. Fans of Stephen Graham Jones will connect with the characters from the past, although they lack the overtly supernatural aspect of his work. The horror remains the same though.

This is a difficult book to read in terms of the content and the emotional core - it felt like a string was being wound tightly inside me until the very, very end when I felt something let go. I don't know if it broke, or if it was freed, but I felt it all the same.

A truly phenomenal writer telling modern stories that don't forget their history, Tommy Orange is an absolute genius.

Thanks #NetGalley for the eARC of #WanderingStars by #TommyOrange out tomorrow, 2/27/24!

It is so easy to get lost in the world of THERE THERE and WANDERING STARS. At times I felt like I was in the room with each character, listening to them speak. While other times I felt quiet, focused on a single plot point or character. Tommy Orange weaves such intricacies into his stories.

You know the moment you’re on a roller coaster, when everything in your mind falls away and you’re simply in the moment. Or when you’re taking a bite of your favorite food and the senses take over. That’s how it feels to read Tommy Orange. It’s an incredible experience.

WANDERING STARS is a prequel/sequel to THERE THERE. It’s not required to have read THERE THERE beforehand, but I would recommend it! WANDERING STARS is a generational story following one indigenous family, with a few other characters too. It’s also set in Oakland, CA like THERE THERE was. I really don’t want to say anymore. It’s best to go in without knowing more.

I keep thinking about these books, and I’m already thinking about a reread even though it’s only been several weeks since I finished these. I’ll read anything Tommy Orange writes, and I urge you to give his books a chance.

Have you read anything by Tommy Orange? Let me know your thoughts!

I can’t wait for the world to read WANDERING STARS, out tomorrow 2/27/2024!!

Tommy Orange shows that there isn’t a sophomore slump. His second book is as poetic and important, maybe more historically important than “There There”, his first book. It is filled with rage, addiction, sadness, and tells the devastating story of America’s war on its indigenous people. It is an important book that people should read to understand what was done or to remind us of what was done. When reading this book, I kept thinking of Madeline Sayet’s play, “Where We belong” as a lot of the same themes run through both her play and Orange’s novel. I highly recommend both.