Patron Saints of Nothing is a 2019 Young Adult mystery novel by Randy Ribay.
Filipino-American teenager Jason "Jay" Reguero plans to spend his spring break playing video games and hanging out with his best friend, but his plans are changed he receives the new of his cousin Jun's death as a result of President Duterte's drug war. With the family refusing to look into it, Jay decides to travel to the Philippines and uncover the truths behind his cousin's death—and subsequently, his life.
Patron Saints of Nothing contains examples of...
- Abusive Parents: While Tito Maning did care about his late son, as evidenced by his participation in Jun's repast, he was also controlling and strict, and at one point locking him out of the house after he declares himself a vegetarian.
- Big Brother Instinct: Jun cared deeply about his little sisters. At one point, towards the end of the book, Grace recalls an incident in her childhood in which Jun took the time out of his day to make a boy apologize to her after he pulled up her skirt in front of their classmates.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jay and his cousins are able to uncover the truth behind Jun's death and receive closure, but the war on drugs is still ongoing, even to this day.
- But Not Too Foreign: Jay is half-Filipino and half-white, through his father and mother respectively, and was raised in Michigan. His disconnect with his roots and alienation from Filipino culture is a point of internal conflict for him throughout the book.
- Calling the Old Man Out: In chapter 33, Jay reveals how Tito Maning knew kept tabs on Jun's life after he left the house and knew he wasn't using drugs (although that turns out to be wrong), and even accuses him of mudering his son. Maning responds by attempting to strangle him.
- Drugs Are Bad: Deconstructed. The whole book is a critique of Duterte's war on drugs note , and how in an attempt to improve the country, thousands of innocent people died. Jay makes it clear through his narration that even if Jun was an addict, he didn't deserve to die.
- Ear Ache: Towards the end, Jay's grandmother enacts this on Tito Maning in order to prevent him from strangling his nephew.
- Real Men Eat Meat: In one of his letters, Jun recalls how when he told his father that he didn't want to eat meat anymore, Maning called him a "bakla", a Tagalog & Cebuano term for effeminate queer men and trans women.
- Shout-Out: To Yuri!!! on Ice
“She shakes her head. “A fan forum for some anime they’re both obsessed with about gay figure skaters. And then it turns out that we live in the same village as her tita.”
