Patron Saints of Nothing Hardcover – June 18, 2019

Words cannot express how much Patron Saints of Nothing touched me. It opened up wounds of my Filipino American experience. The guilt the main protagonist feels for having a better life in America resonated with me; it’s how I felt many days of my life. The confusion on how to give back to a homeland that seems to accept and welcome foreigners more than balikbayans like me has been deflating through the years. By the end of the novel, I felt more resolved to not let my past define my future relationship with my motherland.The emotional family moments and the character’s sincere perspective brings light to a complicated Philippines drug war that I hope makes readers ask the question: what can I do?This is why we read books. Thank you Mr. Ribay for an instant classic.

A simply outstanding book. The book is set in the Philippines as The War on Drugs rages. “Patron Saint of Nothing” provides an excellent and realistic introduction to both; however the underlying themes of belonging, loyalty, guilt, fear, and imperfection speak to everyone everywhere. Though I guess the genre is “fiction for young adults”, (and I wish I was still a “young adult”), the book was immensely satisfying to me, despite the difficult subject matter. Here are the 5 things I appreciated the most from the author: 1) From my experience as an American married to a Filipina (and hence her family), the author accurately captures true experiences of “Fil-Am” children, both while living in the USA and when they visit the Philippines. 2) The author accurately depicts (from my experience) characters, relationships, daily life, and events from the Philippines. 3) The author has been able to craft an engaging and suspenseful story that accurately captures “The War on Drugs” and makes it more “real” for the reader. 4) The author does not embellish or sensationalize the story of the War on Drugs. In fact, the author carefully presents, through his characters, the opposing views on the necessity or evil of such actions. 5) Finally, the author captures in this specific story that life is often messy and that there are no easy answers or perfect endings. I am grateful to the author as this book both gave me a chance to return to the Philippines, even if only in my mind, and a chance to become engrossed in a well-crafted and suspenseful story. An outstanding book.

This book is summer reading for my 14 yr olds who have been home all year and are already mildly depressed. This book starts out where puppies die. Puppies die!!! It goes down hill from there. I don't want ,my kids reading that stuff. It has nothing to do with how they live and right now 14 yr olds are trying to form their own identity. Thank you to all the LIBERAL teachers that think this is a great book.I took my kids out of public school last week where they can actually be taught to function as humans first before they get depressed at the plight of others.

A beautifully written and poignant novel, Patron Saints of Nothing focuses on contemporary events that few (if any) YA novels (or any novels that I know of) address—Duterte’s “war on drugs” in the Philippines and its devastating impacts on families.Randy Ribay’s protagonist, Jay Reguero, is a Filipino-American high school senior leading a typical, rather mundane adolescent life in Michigan. When he learns of his cousin Jun’s unexpected and suspicious death in the Philippines, however, personal regret and curiosity compel him to travel to Manila during spring break to visit his extended family and find out the truth behind Jun’s murder at the hands of Filipino authorities.Soon Jay’s “detective work” leads him to a host of discoveries he never anticipated. He learns a great deal about the country of his birth, the family he hasn’t seen since he was a child, and the personal consequences of national politics.While this story features numerous elements that you’d expect to find in a YA novel—friction between teens and their parents, budding romance and its inherent complications, dilemmas regarding identity and the future—Ribay’s novel transcends the trappings of the genre and depicts compelling moments of epiphany as Jay arrives at uncomfortable but necessary truths about how well we actually know those we profess to care about, the complex motives that drive human behavior, and our ability to control our own destinies. Highly recommended.

While the novel is relatively short and somewhat formulaic, it follows a tried-and-true recipe of the main character's personal journey from a typical upper-middle-class American teenager who has never had to think much about the world outside college admissions, hanging with friends, video games, social media about movies and other inconsequential minutiae - to a braver, more mature,, socially aware crusader of sorts. It’s a path that many other writers have trod, in various different contexts.The context for this particular story is of Duterte's drug war in the Philippines, in which President Duterte has essentially declared open season on anyone associated with the drug trade (pushers as well as users) and murders, committed both by the police as well as by freelance vigilantes, has become commonplace.The main character, Jay, is your standard middle class American teenager, whose main concerns were getting good enough grades to gain acceptance into a "good" college for the ultimate purpose of finding a "good job." When he learns that his cousin Jun, who is the same age as he, has been killed in the Philippines, but that no one in the family seems to want to discuss it, it lights a flame in Jay that leads him to discover anew the Filipino side of his identity, and thr complexities of a world his middle class American life has completely sheltered him from. Along the way he discovers courage and love in pursuit of the truth regarding his cousin's death.I very much enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

An excellent book exposing and detailing the dark underbelly of life in the Philippines under dictator Rodrigo Duterte. A compelling read for anyone from a later teen to an adult.

A really beautiful and informative story about grief, guilt, family and politics.A sweet and relatable main character, who's smart enough to know how to change his views on things.Jay will certainly leave an impact on all readers.And look at that powerful cover !