It's hard to overstate how excited I was for this book; There There has been one of my favorites ever since I read it, and I've been checking for news of its sequel for so long now. When I found out I could read it on Netgalley it was the highlight of my week.

That said, this didn't disappoint at all. I will admit it took me a bit to get into it, given how different the first third or so is from There There. But I trusted Tommy Orange and his process, and I found the entirety of the book engaging, even if it took me longer to read the beginning.

I read the last two thirds of this book all in one day, and basically couldn't put it down. I love the way it balances hard depressing real-world shit with love and hope for the future. The characters here go through so much, and at times it can be really hard to read, but I don't think it should have been written any other way. It's a great sequel and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for the chance to read and review this ARC.

Orange's second novel is a stunning achievement, depicting over a century's worth of atrocities against the indigenous people of America while also being a multigenerational family story full of richly drawn, fascinating characters.

Highly anticipated after There There, this book definitely hits the spot! At times it is an emotional read but one that is needed. I love Orange’s skill to bring Native issues to the forefront through fantastic fiction. The writing and pace of the good is good. Part 1 almost felt like a different book from 2/3 but overall I enjoyed it. It did provided the familial trauma issues that occur throughout society! Such a great book!

I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first book by this author and a very different kind of book for me. I feel that maybe if I had read the first one, I might have enjoyed it more. It was a difficult read but I made it and will probably read the first book and re-read this one. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

Emotions laid bare following generational trauma inflicted on Native peoples is how I felt at the conclusion of this amazing book. The author doesn’t shy away from brutal descriptions of addiction and its toll on families. His writing is poetic, insightful, and raw. I love his writing style and the love/heart he pours into this story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alfred A Knopf Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

Even though I was underwhelmed by There, There, I know much of the world was enamored with it and Tommy Orange, so I was excited to give Wandering Stars a read. I liked reading about the experiences of Native Americans, as it's a culture I'm less familiar with, but the story itself was challenging for me. A lot of Wandering Stars reads like short stories (which are generally not my jam) - a large map of characters that are all connected, but not in a fluid, sequential way. I had a hard time following the different plots and connections and couldn't find the thread that wove them all together. A lot of the writing is beautiful. The stories are painful and poignant. There is a lot of good, but as a whole, the book wasn't cohesive enough for me. If you loved There, There, you should probably pick this one up despite my lackluster review. Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

'And in the year 1924, Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve the tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical word for a gradual death of tribes and Indians, a clinical killing, designed by psychopaths calling themselves politicians.'

The writing of this author is beautiful. There are few people who are able to craft words that convey such depth of feeling and emotion. I do wish I had known this was a sequel however I enjoyed it all the same. As a native Oklahoman I am well aware of the history of Indigenous people but this book makes you deeply feel the ache of a lifetime of pain and unrest.

Five years ago, after reading Tommy Orange's There There, I had the pleasure of meeting him at a reading. This was before his book became a "thing," an award winner, a Pulitzer finalist, a huge best seller. The place was packed. He had a deer-in-the-headlights quality to him, amazed that more than the dozen or so indigenous readers he'd expected would find his book important enough to spend time with. In subsequent interviews, he has gained confidence and poise, acquired a richness of purpose that shines through in this, his sophomore follow-up. Tracing the family first presented in There There, Wandering Stars begins with a massacre, continues with lives of survivors that and brings to light the colonizing atrocities perpetuated on the Cheyenne by the U.S. government. Orange's research is impeccable. The balance of the book returns to Oakland, following the events described in the previous one, and the descendants of those earlier Cheyenne are trying to cope with the fallout. Central to the story are the recovery efforts of Ortiz and his aunt Opal's working to keep her family together despite the infiltration of opioids into their lives as well as the PTSD being experienced by Ortiz's younger brother. Operating from several different viewpoints, sometimes even employing the first person, giving this a more introspective quality, Orange's beautiful prose highlights what is truly a wonderful masterwork.

Thanks to #NetGalley, Knopf, and Tommy Orange for making this advance review copy available.

I’ll admit it took me a few chapters to warm up to this story, but once I did, I did not want to put it down. The writing is beautiful and frequently moving. I appreciate how Orange varied tone and diction to convey the voices of different characters; I think only two characters were initially written in first person, and the way that changed in the later chapters to convey openness was skillfully done.

Maybe it’s weird to call a novel honest, but that’s how #Wandering Stars felt to me. Recommended.

Reading about a heritage that has been trampled on, extinguished and destroyed and to try to resurrect it in your soul, your person, is the story that Tommy Orange citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. creates for us. The stories of violence against Native American and the addiction that followed are well known but to watch this family deal with it shows incredible perseverance with a strong dose of love. And they continued ‘to believe something good could come of it’. This was a hella good book. Thank you #NetGalley and #knopf for providing me with this copy of #WanderingStars.

A solid 4.5

I wish I could shake Tommy Orange's hand. He knows the power of fiction and pushes and shoves the genre in harrowing, educating, conflicting ways. Even when I struggled to put all the characters into time (due to my own focus issues, not the writing), I held into the narrative and gasping for breath. The last chapter was a serious unforeseen gut punch in the best way possible. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for an early read in exchange for an honest review.

I had to think about this one for an entire day before I could sort my feelings out about it. It’s a complicated story and reading it felt a bit disconnected like it was two separate stories that were forced together without much transition. But I think I have decided that was Orange’s point, to bring together an indigenous families past and present in all its disjointed and harsh trauma, and to witness the loss of their history, cultural significance, their person.
Wandering Stars is the continuation of the characters in Oranges first book There, There. It is the story of the Star and Red Feather families of Oakland California and their family’s Cheyenne ancestors generational trauma starting with the Sandcreek massacre and Carlisle Indian industrial school leading up to the situational trauma and aftermath of the Oakland PowWow shooting in There, There. Orange’s brilliant writing makes you feel the depth of discomfort that this family is experiencing in their situational and generational trauma. His writing expertly showcases how past and present trauma can destroy and disconnect indigenous Americans from their History, Language and Culture. If you would like an in depth conversation about how colonialism has affected Indigenous Americans then pick this book for your 2024 bookclub selections. There are endless topics to ponder and discuss but It won’t be published until the end of February so please put this on your TBR list asap!

Thank you Netgalley and Alfred A. Knopf for the chance to read and review this advance readers copy of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange.

I didn't read There, There so I think that led to some confusion in reading this book. I didn't realize they were connected. It took me a while to get used to the switching to new stories/new characters throughout the book. It's almost like a collection of short stories with the characters being related. I enjoyed the stories, and now will have to go back and read There, There so I can understand some of the book better.

When I requested Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars, I was unaware of his Pultizer Prize-finalist novel THERE THERE. As I read Wandering Stars, I didn’t feel left out by not having experienced THERE THERE prior. This sequel traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of an Indigenous family.

The novel begins in Colorado with a young survivor of the massacre by the name of Star. He is forced to learn English and practice Christianity at an industrial school dedicated to the erasure of Native history, culture and identity.

Then Orange moves on to the next generation… Star’s son, Charles. Charles is tortured by a prison guard. After he meets Opal Viola, they envision a future away from the violence that follows their bloodlines.

Moving to the future in 2018, we meet Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield who is barely holding her family together after a shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. Here, they deal with opioid addiction, gun violence, depression, racism, self-harm, PTSD and loneliness.

This is a heartbreaking and devastating historical story. The writing is compelling yet shocking. Other reviewers recommend reading THERE THERE first to get the best experience from both books.

I highly recommend for readers of historical fiction. You will either be reminded or learn much about this sad time in our history.

This was a DNF at 30%. Orange’s writing is beautiful, but there just wasn’t enough story for me.
Thanks to #netgalley and #knopfpublishing for this #arc of #wanderingstars in exchange for an honest review.

Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In this sequel to There There, several generation of Cheyenne family members manage the aftermath of the previous novel’s conclusion.
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I read There There last year and loved it. I actually chose this book to read based on the author, and I went in NOT knowing that it actually follows up on the end of There There. To stay spoiler free for both novels, I’ll just say that this one follows multiple characters inflicted by violence, mental health, and, of course, living in a country that has fought to erase its original people.
The novel feels like literature yet without forgoing an engaging narrative. Orange pulls you into his story with wisdom and grips you with intrigue. Specifically, the family’s dynamics are spot on, and the depictions of being high and addicted, and of PTSD, are done incredibly well.
That being said, for me it doesn’t quite have the pizzazz or heart that There There has. Perhaps because it feels too much like a “sequel” with not enough novelty to it.

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Unlike There There, the characterization in this iteration is more focused, though it still focuses a bit more on quantity over quality like its predecessor. Opal and Sean are my favorite characters - the latter especially made me laugh.
Orvil’s friendship with Sean is a standout. And I love how you can really feel the raw energy of frustration, longing, etc., from characters like Orvil. His overall narrative beginning to end - his journey with physical and mental health - is equal parts inspiring and upsetting.
I do wish some of the connections between characters were made more explicit or were elaborated on (besides the family tree at the beginning). It took me longer than usual to straighten away who was who.
And though I think Jacquie’s character could’ve had more, Lony in the end has quite a nice full arc.

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Literary writing that feels accesible, digestible, and beautiful. I love how Orange writes with lengthy stream of consciousness sentences and indirect, poetic storytelling. His intentional usage of run-on sentences feels stylistically impressive and appealing. Though it might not be the most straightforward writing or palatable for everyone, it’s done wonderfully.
There’s also clever usage of POV: using first person POV for much of the time (Charles, Orvil, etc.), second for characters speaking “you” to another character (Opal, etc.), and third for other characters (Pratt, Lony, etc.).
I also like the little stylistic choices, like lengthy moments of dialogue/banter, not using quotation marks at times, etc.
And I appreciate Orange’s analysis of Native existence not in isolation, i.e. addressing past/present experiences, Native characters who are adopted or mixed or mirrored to Black Americans, and so on. It shows a meta and deep analysis of Orange’s community with an objective and broad view that includes multiple viewpoints.
Lastly, Orange has great references, like Donnie Darko, video games, and internet culture.

Recommended to fans of literary generational stories.

To have been born in the United States and to not be a direct member of a tribe or to insist on being part of some tribe based on personal oral history that a great grandparent, always maternally, was an indigenous person, is to live with delusions in order to live with historical absolution, what a character in Orange’s second novel refers as living as a pretendian. As a pretendian, one’s Indian history is whitewashed, there were no massacres, the buffalo as a food supply wasn’t decimated, boarding schools for Indian children weren’t detention centers where children were tortured into assimilation, and that Indians had always been citizens of the United States and the legislation in 1924 establishing them as citizens is something made up.

Wandering Stars sets the record straight, beginning with two Cheyenne survivors of the Sand Creek massacre in Colorado in 1864, charting their family history from the Indian industrial schools and its founder, Richard Henry Pratt, a name well worth googling, to 2018, Oakland, California, where the latter day descendants of Charles Star, after decades of intermarriage and forced assimilation, with no knowledge of their progenitor, hold on to their identity and culture, while coping with our societies all too common afflictions, depression and drug addiction.

It’s difficult to read this story and not to see it as a polemic and an indictment of what historically it meant to force a people to become ‘civilized’ but not so civilized as to interfere with the myths created in the past that must benignly be believed in the present because historical truth makes us feel uncomfortable. Along with truth telling there is Indian activism, but not belabored. As a work of literature, there are the tropes of family, well intentions, overcoming, and love, plus a good adventure story of the old west. Overall, the story triumphs. This is a great novel, destined for the Western canon.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf publishers for an advanced copy.

A fantastic read by the extraordinary author of the critically acclaimed novel There There.I was so engrossed in his latest story following some characters from his first novel.and other story lines.Will be recommending #netgalley #knopfdoubleday

I read There There so was curious as to what Orange would do next.

This multigenerational saga: "...traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather’s shooting in There There..." Enter "Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who ... found[s] the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines. Fast forward to Oakland, 2018 and Opal Viola VIctoria Bear Sheild, her nephew Orvil, his younger brother Lony, Loother, Jacquie, and a cast of other characters [the center of the book--to me].

Bits about Theodore Roosevelt and his racism against Native Americans. Richard Henry Pratt--a real person.

The book was concentrated in 2018. MUCH about drug addiction and trying to escape their reality. A family in tatters. Searching for--everything!

Some of the language I did enjoy:
"Pratt was stern and plain, with a nose that announced itself on his face like some stone monument on an otherwise unremarkable hill."
Chemotherapy: "The stuff felt more like deletion than depletion, like a part of me was being permanently erased or replaced with gray gray grary gray, grayness."

Learned:
hobo is "short for homeward bound, or homeless boy."
And of Pick's disease--a less common form of a type of dementia [frontotemporaral dementia].

An interesting, difficult read, made more so for me because of many long, run-on sentences which are a disconnect for me and which I often had to reread to follow the trajectory. I got lost in the riffs.

Too much on addiction to my liking, but...

Although it does not seem like it at first, this is a sequel of sorts to There, There. I really enjoyed both sections of this book and the deeper dive into some of the characters I came to know in the previous book. I look forward to more from Tommy Orange and hope that we get a chance to revisit other characters from his stunning debut.