📚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.

“Assimilation was one of the words they used for Indians becoming white in order to survive, in order that they might not be killed for being Indians.”

Wow, this book is intense and deep.

The story moves so quickly that the anxiousness and foreboding of the characters is passed to the reader. Once the forward starts, there is an intense ominous feeling that does not subside until the end. The writing moves quickly and then slows down for an interesting pacing.

The historical facts about how the Native American Indians were treated mixed with the stories of these characters is incredibly raw and honest.

It is kind of a mix between Killers of the Flower Moon and Homegoing.

So many amazing quotes, feelings and truths are woven into the story of this family.

I liked There There by Tommy Orange more, and I appreciated how some of those characters, and their experiences, transferred to this book. You don’t have to read them in order but I would start with There There.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC! I read THERE THERE when it came out a few years ago, and found it to be very powerful and enlightening. I was very excited to read WANDERING. STARS for a similar experience, but didn’t realize that it was a sequel of sorts, detailing the aftermath of the incident in Orange’s first novel. Though I enjoyed this sequel (and also prequel?), it didn’t hit its mark in quite the same way for me.

The first section details the lives of several generations of a family and their struggles as Native Americans. I found much of this section difficult to read, with odd sentence structure that made thoughts difficult to follow and interrupted the flow. Parts of this first section read like nonfiction, and there were events that seemed out of nowhere to me; I went back several times to see if I had missed something. However, all of this improves with Opal’s perspective, when the writing drastically changes for the better, and that improvement was continued in the second section, which focused on the three brothers (Orvil, Loother, and Lony, who I believe were all introduced in THERE THERE). This second section deals primarily with addiction — how a person becomes addicted, the lies they tell themselves, and the profound impact on the people around them. I found this section to be honest, powerful, and excellently done.

However, the third section lost me again. It was shorter than the other two, but read like an end-of-movie wrap-up (where are they now?), and didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the novel. It seemed very preachy and a little too saccharine for my liking, although I will absolutely admit that might just be my cynicism, as I’m approaching the anniversary of losing someone to addiction.

Overall, much of this novel is extremely well done, but the beginning and the end were weaker for me. Three stars.

I have waited years for another book to come from the mind of Tommy Orange, and that wait was well worth it with Wandering Stars. This book was incredible and will stay with you long after you close it.

When reading There, There I was immediately taken with so many of it's multitude of characters. I loved watching a story unfold through interconnected perspectives and when I finished I was left with so many thoughts as to how the characters got to where they were at the Big Oakland Pow Wow. Wandering Stars answers those questions and then some. It follows your favorite characters back in time to show how each of their ancestors impacted them present day. Seeing how their lives were in some ways determined all the way back to the Sand Creek Massacre was an eye opening view of how trauma is passed down and stored through generations. It was incredible to see how each character reacted, dealt with and worked with the trauma they'd been given and experienced.

This book follow more than just the stories of a few native people and how they navigate their world. It intricately shows how they were ripped from their lands and cultures and how they find ways to come home to their culture and their ancestors way of life. It's more than passing down names, it's passing down culture. How they come home physically and mentally. How they define being native and what it means for them.

This book maps out history, trauma and highlights how we deal with those things. The characters show immense strength and perseverance even though they didn't start life with privilege. It is eye opening, heartbreaking and awe-inspiring to see its characters develop and experience life with what they're dealt. Through massacre, abuse, removal from their land and culture, addiction and mental health crisis they all rise above their circumstances in individual ways.

One thing I love about Tommy Orange is that he gives you so much accurate information about native peoples and history. When I finish one of his books I immediately find myself googling and researching things I didn't know about previously. His books ignite a hunger to learn more and be better and that's commendable in an author.

A must read and a five star!

Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me the honor of reading this book. All opinions are my own.

Wandering Stars is a beautifully written tale of generational trauma and cultural genocide spanning from the Sand Creek Massacre to modern day. Mixing historical and contemporary fiction while showing the trickledown effects of the horrors the Indigenous population has endured throughout history. It showcases the loss of cultural practices, language and identity many community members are still facing today. Wandering Stars had me reflecting on the pain of my ancestors and connecting to the characters of today as they navigate through a world that views their heritage as something of the past.

I absolutely loved There, There and Wandering Stars and whole-heartedly recommend this series.

Thank you so much to Knopf for the ARC.

As always, please protect your peace and check TW prior to reading. 🖤

We meet Jude Star as he's remembering the events and aftermath of the Sand Creek massacre of 1864. Violently separated from his family, he winds up at a prison "castle" in Florida under the cruel watch of (a very real) Richard Henry Pratt, who went on to start the Carlisle Indian School and epitomized the white man's goal of Indian assimilation, "to control people better, to extend adolescence and create more complacent citizens using models they used to domesticate animals". There's a lot of trauma, along with a lot of resilience, and connection through the generations.

"Walking around Lake Merritt you see all kinds of people in Oakland, the hipster, the homeless, the homeless hipster, the mixtape mixed-race CD-pushing rapper , the serious runners and the casual runners, the joggers, the stoners, the casual blunt smokers, the power walkers, the slow walkers that talk endlessly, the stroller pushers, and then just so many young people with blankets on the grass. It didn’t used to be like this around the lake, people always walked it, but now it is a kind of scene, with food trucks in tow."

Ultimately we end up in Oakland, after the powwow from There There. I love the world building, the authenticity. We care about the characters, their decisions, their fate. Their inner turmoil, outer struggles (with each other, racism, injustice, you name it). Wandering Stars is a prequel and a sequel and revisiting the characters alongside the stories of their ancestors (there's a helpful family tree at the beginning) and depictions of systemic cultural erasure (of customs, rituals and language while families were separated) was a strong framing that resonated. If Orange continues adding to this story I'm here for it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC.

Tommy Orange's fantastic novel about Native communities in There There is continued in his new novel Wandering Stars. While you do not have to read the first book to enjoy this one, it does provide context to characters' actions (disclaimer that I had read it, but had been years, and so I read a summary to re-familiarize myself with the characters). Wandering Stars hinges on the shooting that takes place in There There, with the first section of this book being about earlier Native ancestors, while the second section focuses on events post-shooting. He provided a helpful family tree at the beginning of the book to align how individuals were related. Jude Star lives through the 1864 San Creek Massacre, and is eventually put on a train to Florida to be jailed, and he meets the overseer Pratt who believes he can "reform" the Natives. Jude leans into religion and a particular Bible verse resonates with him- Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Pratt's vision is unfortunately carried through to Jude's son Charles who attends Pratt's Carlisle Industrial School for Indians.

Orvil, many generations removed from his relative Jude recovers physically from the bullet wound sustained at the Powwow. He finds comfort in reading how fellow survivors of mass shootings dealt with the aftermath. He also starts taking more of his prescribed painkillers than he should and makes friends with a fellow student who also takes painkillers after sustaining an accident. Orvil's brothers Loother and Lony are both dealing with difficulties in their family in unique ways. Lony wants to connect to Native practices and attempts to use folklore in a way to protect his family, especially Orvil whom he is very worried about.

This book is very much one of generational trauma and how individuals cope (or do not). We see early signs of drug use in earlier generations, family separation, mental health challenges, transracial adoption, and self-discovery. As in There There, different characters are approaching their relationship with their Native identities in different ways- some leaning into, some running away from. Orange is a fantastic writer, and he tamps into cultures that are not highlighted enough in literature. I found the first section of this book very fast-paced, and wish I could have spent more time with the earlier generations, while at times, some of the second section dragged. I really enjoyed some of the secondary characters, especially Lony, who says in a letter- may we learn to forgive ourselves, so that we lose the weight, so that we may fly, not as birds but as people, get above the weight and carry on, for the next generations, so that we might keep living, stop doing all this dying. Well said, Lony.

Thank you to Knopf via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

If you loved reading There, There, you will love this follow-up novel.

This book asks the question: what does it mean to be the children and grandchildren of massacre? The story goes through a stay in a prison castle and then an Indian School where cultural extermination is carried out by forcibly removing any expression of Native identity. Brutality continues when the next generation is born and sent to the same boarding school. By following the descendants of massacre, we are brought across timelines and perspectives following three generations of Southern Cheyenne people. This family connects to the characters from There, There and expands on the past, present, and future. I found the family tree outlined in the beginning of the book helpful to keep track of the characters. This is a powerful depiction of how colonization and generational trauma has long lasting effects on so many people. This is a story of struggle, survival, addiction, endurance, injustice, and healing. Please refer to content warnings prior to reading as this book does explore heavy topics.

I enjoyed reading this book because the characters are complex and multifaceted. I would recommend this to anyone interested in reading a great literary work that explores identity in a meaningful way.

CW: addiction, sexual assault (off-page), self-harm, cancer, suicide, suicidal ideation, death

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

“Wandering Stars” serves as both a prequel and a sequel to Tommy Orange’s Pulitzer finalist debut, “There There” as it chronicles the Native American Bear Shield-Red Feather family. This historical fiction tale begins in 1864 with the Sand Creek Massacre in which more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed by the U.S. Army in Colorado. A Cheyenne boy flees and teams up with another young survivor until starvation causes them to turn themselves in at Fort Reno where 33 prisoners of war were shipped to Fort Marion Prison Castle in Florida to pay for the crimes committed by Southern Cheyennes against the Army. While incarcerated, the boys, now called Jude Star and Victor Shield, attend school and church and train to be military men “dressed as the very kind of men some of us had seen wipe our people out.” On a train ride back to Oklahoma, Jude sees piles of buffalo bones, each buffalo slaughtered signaling “an Indian gone.” Jude laments that he did not want to “see any more of the old world so dead before it was gone.”

Jude marries Hannah, a white orphan raised by Cherokees. Their son, Charles Star, is sent to the Carlisle school to become assimilated “in order that he might not be killed for being Indian.” Charles Star and Opal Viola Bear Shield, Victor Shield’s daughter, inherit the trauma passed on by their fathers and Charles Star, who had dreams of becoming a writer, robs general stores and is ultimately undone by his addiction to laudanum. Their daughter, Victoria Bear Shield, is raised by white alcoholics where she “will grow up an unpaid servant, a faithful daughter to faithless drunks. . . .” Victoria Bear Shield will have two daughter, one of which will raise Jude’s great, great, great grandsons, including Orvil Red Feather, a teenager in 2018 recovering from being shot during the Oakland Coliseum powwow and contending with an addiction to pain killers as he tries to undo a past which is tied to the present. As Orvil states, “I wanted to feel connected to being Native, and to being Cheyenne, but I didn’t quit know how.”

Orange has created a searing portrait of the generational impact of institutional and systematic trauma and oppression brought about by America’s anti-human program of assimilation. Orange’s novel is a remarkable achievement, chronicling over a century’s worth of atrocities against the indigenous people in a multi-generational story with richly drawn and fascinating characters. The writing is lyrical and Orange traces the violence and confusion of Jude Star’s life through generations with a powerful but subtle hand. Despite decades of murder, poverty, and addiction, and despite the efforts of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School founder Richard Henry Pratt to send “the vanishing race off into final captivity before disappearing into history forever,” essential traces of Native heritage endure in this powerful indictment of America’s misguided efforts. Thank you Knopf and Net Galley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this important and powerful novel that will stay with me long after I close the cover.

4 stars. Tommy Orange is always worth reading. His perspective and his style are both very special. Having devoured both books, I can safely say I'd read anything he writes.

Some of the sentences in Wandering Stars are just as heartstopping as the prose I was so taken with in There There, but the storylines don’t feel as clear in the historical sections. The writing gets much more effective when the setting returns to the present day. It was very evident that Orange wished to explore the effect of Indian schools and generational trauma as it relates to race and colonialism, which is a fantastic topic, but the flow felt more jumbled than his previous effort. The characterization is absolutely fantastic.

At the end of Tommy Orange’s first novel, There There, Orvil Red Feather was shot. Wandering Stars provides Orvil’s family history, going back to his great-great-great grandfather, Jude Star. It follows the struggles of each ensuing generation until it gets to the story of Orvil and his brothers, Loother and Lony.

While only 336 pages long, the novel often feels longer. The first part of the novel moves at an even pace as it gives the history of each generation (starting with Jude Star) and its legacy to subsequent generations. However, once it gets to Orvil’s story, the novel seems to lose focus as it jumps back and forth among the members of Orvil’s family.

Orange’s dedication reads, “For everyone surviving and not surviving this thing called and not called addiction.” Wandering Stars tells how each generation of the Star/Bear Shield family suffers from different forms of addiction.

Amidst this fictional tale, Tommy Orange shows the legacy of colonialism, its continuing impact on the Indigenous peoples of America, and the problems they face in ascertaining cultural identity after centuries of attempts to obliterate that identity. Wandering Stars is a difficult and unsettling read that is very important in helping to understand the hardships and suffering that Native Americans have faced over the centuries.