Patron Saints of Nothing

Patron Saints of Nothing

by

Randy Ribay

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Themes and Colors
Truth, Adolescence, and Justice Theme Icon
Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame Theme Icon
Culture and Belonging Theme Icon
Death and Meaning Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Patron Saints of Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Truth, Adolescence, and Justice

Patron Saints of Nothing centers around a high school senior named Jay Reguero. When Jay’s cousin Jun dies in the Philippines, Jay travels there to discover the truth about Jun’s final days. In his youthful ignorance, Jay assumes that Jun’s death has a simple explanation, that justice is possible, and that those around Jun fall neatly into categories of “good” and “bad.” But as Jay untangles the causes of Jun’s death, he comes to…

read analysis of Truth, Adolescence, and Justice

Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame

Patron Saints of Nothing initially appears to be a murder mystery: high schooler Jay Reguero is determined to find his cousin Jun’s killer, and he travels from Michigan to the Philippines to do so. Though Jay is aware that the murder could have been government-ordered, his desire assumes that a single person killed Jun and that this person can be blamed for his death. Eventually, Jay learns that everyone, himself included, had some part…

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Culture and Belonging

The protagonist of Patron Saints of Nothing, Jay Reguero, was born in the Philippines but moved to the United States when he was one. As a result, he feels stuck between two worlds and two cultures. The fact that he’s about to graduate high school exacerbates this feeling, as he isn’t sure what he wants to do after he finishes school or where he wants to live. Meanwhile, other people constantly try to…

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Death and Meaning

Patron Saints of Nothing centers around the death of Jay Reguero’s cousin Jun. Jay is initially crippled by grief but resolves to find out who murdered Jun, and more importantly, to travel to the Philippines and figure out why Jun died. Jay seems to believe that Jun’s death will then mean something—that Jun won’t have died for nothing if the mystery of his murder is solved, and that some positive resolution will follow…

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