this was excellent.

it had so much to say about america, about family, about addiction, about being native, about cultural identity, and it did it all in such beautiful language and so precisely.

there were parts of this where it lost me, and there was one perspective i don't think added more than it took away, but the last sentences of this brought tears to my eyes. striking.

Love, love Tommy Orange. I had no idea of the significance of his book titles before realizing that the lyrics from Portishead's Wandering Stars is also a reference to the bible verse, did a deep dive into that one. Unlike with Demon Copperhead I was somehow able to stick with these stories of fractured family and addiction that felt critical to hear, redemptive and hopeful.

This is a portrait of a family who experiences addiction throughout generations, and the way that they try to cope, still live their lives, and figure out what that means as a Native American in Oakland, CA.
After reading There, There, I was excited to come back into the world that Tommy Orange built in that book. Although this is a stand-alone, it is also nice to read familiar names. I found it fascinating to start generations back from the characters we already knew from There, There.
The characters that Orange gives us are broken, sad, traumatized, and struggle with addiction for a multitude of reasons but they also have some light in their lives. Each character has their own voice and we learn how much family means to each of them. I enjoyed this book very much and look forward to reading Orange again.

After reading There, There I thought I would never know peace. Finally, Tommy Orange gave us Wandering Stars.

What a beautiful, devastating, heartrending story of colonialism, addiction and recovery, family and community, grief, queerness, finding and knowing oneself. I am blown away by Orange's ability to move fluidly from one character to the next, each developing such a clear and vivid life and personality that I feel I know them personally.

This book brought me to tears in heartbreak, relief, joy, devastation, and hope. Read There, There, then read Wandering Stars. Then go hug somebody you love.

This is my first by Tommy Orange, and based on reviews from other readers, I do wish I had read There, There first, as it would likely have helped orient me within the family and the timeline. This is an unflinching look at the multigenerational trauma experienced by Indigenous families who survived European colonization and genocide. Wandering Stars picks up in the wake up the Sand Creek Massacre and then explores each following generation in episodic, character-driven chapters that jump between third, second and first-person. At about the halfway point, we jump ahead to 2018 and our story begins to circle two primary characters - both Indigenous high-school boys living in Oakland with their complicated families and nascent addictions to painkillers. There is a throughline in school trauma across generations - from the violent imprisonment and forced assimilation of boarding schools like Carlisle to today's schools rocked by gun violence and inequity.

This read was ultimately not for me. It didn't stand alone easily, and I felt I was missing too much of There, There to really understand these big character jumps (requesting this ARC when I hadn't read There, There is ENTIRELY on me - I truly thought this would stand alone). I also don't love overwrought prose - sentences that are routinely paragraph-length run-ons remind me why I don't read as much lit fiction anymore. These are my own preferences, though, and I would still say this is an important and propulsive read that will likely be appreciated by those who loved There, There.

This book is not comfortable to read. If you are not aware of how intentional the white colonists were in wiping out all Native Americans you will be after you read this.

The story takes place over generations, painting both an emotional and historical picture of how Native Americans have been marginalized and oppressed in the country. It's all done in the context of compelling story telling and beautiful prose.

Tommy Orange is a national treasure.

I didn’t realize this was connected to There There until I got about halfway in and recognized the characters and stories from that book.

This novel felt like two different books, first half in the past with a handful of characters, and then the second half in the present with a different generation.

While I really enjoyed the novel, similar to There There, I felt like there were SO many characters that sometimes it was hard to follow. The second half was easier because I knew those characters from the author’s first book and it felt like falling back into where the first book left off.

While I liked that aspect, I wish this book would have been entirely the first set of characters. I think the understanding is to get the history of this family, and to see how the events impacted each future generation, but with all the characters and different stories, it importance of the first half was a little lost. I felt like I’d finished a different novel than I’d started.

I think if you loved There There, you’ll love this one. The style of writing is the same, and you revisit characters from that book and their story continues, and you get more of a backstory on their history.

Content Warnings: Addiction, Drug Abuse, Self Harm, Suicide Attempt

Thank you @netgalley and @aaknopf for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Reading challenge category - Booklist Queen 2023: Dual timelines

In the extended prologue, we meet Jude Star, a survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. Throughout the rest of the novel, the reader embarks on an odyssey through the lives of multiple generations of Star's relatives and other characters whose lives intersect in poignant ways. In an unexpected turn, we revisit characters from Orange's first work, "There, There."

Tommy Orange is skilled in his character development as he creates rich, well-rounded characters who have unique stories and voices. He navigates Native American heritage and assimilation with diverse experiences and authenticity.

While I enjoyed "There, There" more, this was a great read. Thanks to #NetGalley for the arc ebook.

The deliberate stripping of Native American identity and culture is not that kind of situation discussed in Martin Puchner’s illuminating book about the heterogeneity of culture—the notion that given cultures are not freshly sprouted and unadulterated stock. Rather, culture as we use the term is a mixed bag of borrowing or imposing culture systems through invasion and colonization or simply the normal blending that results from mass migrations and resettlements.

In this story, the cultural stripping is not being done by a foreign power. It is not a thing of centuries past in some distant and mysterious world. Rather, it is an instance of one group of Americans—who it might be noted hold the entire stock of hard and soft power—deciding its culture is superior to that of another American group. The story that unfolds in this book is about generational trauma and the challenge of thriving as forced adoptees of a transplant culture. It is about today’s world and should serve as a reminder that it is naïve and dangerous to force one’s view of the world on another’s agency.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

i liked this second work by orange a lot! i didnt expect this to pull in the historical element so much, it varied in time periods a lot more then i anticipated and more then his debut did. customers seem to be really responding to the shelf talker i made for these and selling consistently!

Let me first point out that you will not breeze through Tommy Orange’s books. His storytelling is beautiful, but the topics he covers are difficult: colonization, erasure, forced assimilation, generational trauma, racism, and the resulting consequences of fractured identity, addiction, and mental health struggles.

There, There ends with the Red Feather family. Wandering Stars picks up that story and starts from the beginning of the Bear Shield/Red Feather bloodline and works forward. Then, Wandering Stars moves past the aftermath at the conclusion of There, There, and into the future for the Red Feather family. Each book reads as a stand-alone novel, but I recommend reading them in order to experience Tommy Orange’s complete heartbreaking yet hopeful storytelling.

His writing explains the neglected, lost, or forgotten (pick whatever word you prefer but ultimately erased) history in American history books. But unlike any history book, his masterful storytelling makes you feel actually how heavy and heartbreaking this history is. So Impactful! Metaphors, analogies, and, at times, mockery (these points I found really humorous) fill the pages of this brilliant literary piece that should be required reading for high school and college students. I will forever read ANYTHING the Tommy Orange writes!!

I was a little lost at first, mostly because I was reading on a tablet and couldn't refer to the family tree as I normally would. I liked when I recognized the characters from There, There and enjoyed the end of the story. He is such a talented writer.

When a sequel to There, There was announced I was thrilled. There, There ended on a huge cliffhanger and I had no idea if there would be any closure. This is a difficult book to review. The writing is excellent, and I would expect nothing less from the great Tommy Orange. The book follows the Red Feather family back to Jude Star, a Cheyenne man who survived both the massacre of his people and years in prison, which would become the first residential school. I enjoyed the first part o the book the most which details the lives of the Star/Redfeather ancestors. Orange doesn't go into great detail about life in the prison and residential schools, but the impact on Jude and others is clear. The trauma of being unmoored from your culture continues with the current Redfeathers: Opal, Jackie, Orvill, Loother and Lony. The current section is even more difficult to read because you care about these characters so much, but there doesn't seem to be much hope for the future. The epilogue offers some solace.

This was a hard read for me. I feel so badly about how the native Americans were treated and this book was an eye opener. I never knew how bad things really were. It was written very well and flowed so easily to read. The scenes weee so developed I could see them so clearly in my mind.

It is a good book but such a rough time for the people who were here before.

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

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is an excellent and important book. A worthy successor to There There.

This emotional book was a series of short stories from the view of indigenous people describing the impact of the massacres, dislocation and forced assimilation of Native Americans to the European white culture. It ran through several generations of the Star family, although they were not individually named, and how the traumatic events and mistreatment affected them. .
I found the book hard to get into and to stick with because of the heavy content and the long run on sentences. The content was heavy with atrocities, family disruption, drugs and alcohol abuse. I had a hard time connecting with the multiple characters
I kept looking for a cohesive plot but the best I could come up with was a snapshot of the mistreatment of these family members by white government and individuals which lead them to resentment and addiction. I know that I'm the outlier on this book as it has had many positive comments, but I did learn that this author is just not for me.

Tommy Orange's There There was my first 5-star book of this year and had me I immediately pre-ordering Wandering Stars.

This follow up contains the same mesh of narratives from across time and more of Orange's powerful and beautiful prose. While it's still a 5-star book in my opinion, it didn't work quite as well for me as There There. While the various narratives in There There build towards a defining event, most of Wandering Stars is dealing with the aftermath of that event. This book deals with America's history of forced assimilation via residential schools, the large and growing addiction crisis, generational trauma, and other tough topics. It's about history and the present, about who is allowed to tell their stories and why stories matter, and about the importance of learning history.

Wandering Stars is a beautiful book and deserves all the praise it has been getting, and I cannot wait to reread these books while I wait anxiously for whatever Tommy Orange will write next.

This is the long awaited follow-up to There, There by Tommy Orange. I read it without going back to reread There, There because I wanted to know if it could stand alone. I remember how impactful There, There was, but I didn't remember very much else. I was able to get into Wandering Stars without going back and rereading. I listened to the audiobook - the narrators were great.

I am a massive fan of the author so naturally I had to pick this one up. I am feeling extremely sensitive today so I struggled with the honest traumatic stuff, even though I feel like I need to read this.
This would be a great book discussion book.

Tommy Orange is an incredibly talented author, but this is a difficult book to recommend. It relies a lot on the events in his first book, THERE THERE, but it's not really a sequel. It's somewhere between a short story collection and a novel, with a lot of characters and timelines that don't feel well balanced. Overall, it seems a little underbaked, although it has moments of brilliance.