"Brilliant, honest, and equal parts heartbreaking and soul-healing." --Laurie Halse Anderson, author of SHOUT
"A singular voice in the world of literature." --Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down
A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder.
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.
Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.
As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.
A+ | Have you ever read a book so good that it left you numb afterward because your brain legitimately cannot process how amazing the book was? That's me right now with this book.
This book is a masterpiece. It is an absolute must-read for everyone, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. But it is especially important for us Filipinos in the diaspora to read this book. I have never read a book that has left me like this: in total shock and awe, ready to cry but also jump into action. I have never read a book until now that has left me breathless but also left me nodding my head along because everything said here?
I felt it right in my bones.
I'll be writing a full review for this when I've fully processed this awe-inspiring book, but I want to leave you with this quote that hit me right in my face and then stabbed me in the heart (but in a good way):
"It strikes me that I cannot claim this country's serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me."
