Reviews

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

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flaico's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Characters you can really care about. You want to see them doing well. Great job tying in the struggles of previous generations and how those struggles are passed down. Many chapters and moments leave you feeling whole.

Two characters that weren't fully fleshed out: Sean Price and Loother. Sean especially felt like a misstep, and didn't necessarily carry the story forward in a meaningful way.

Orange also has a tendency to write long, clunky sentences that don't make much sense syntactically for force you to re-read the same sentence multiple times. It feels like he's trying to write too poetically, and it gets in the way of his story, which is a great one.

Still, a really thoughtful book, and significantly better than There, There!

brenbrown's review against another edition

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slow-paced

3.25

ltho483's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

emilyyaksic's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

toejben's review against another edition

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5.0

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.