The summer reading book for 2025 is Randy Ribay’s “Patron Saints of Nothing,” which follows the story of Filipino American Jay Reguero’s eye-opening trip to the Philippines to discover the truth of his cousin’s mysterious murder.
The coming-of-age novel additionally features non- fictional aspects of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s ongoing war on drugs, and presents characteristics of Filipino culture. The novel was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
Ribay was born in the Philippines and grew up in Michigan and Colorado. He currently lives in the Bay Area and, according to randyribay.com, he writes “for young people and the young at heart.”
Jasmine Hong ’25 said he “does a good job presenting the information in a real and factual way” in the novel.
The Summer Reading Committee, led by Diana Assereto and Christopher Fern, the Deans of Academics, chose the book.
Themes included are immigrant identity, grief, and guilt. They picked the book “because we were looking for something that would not only be engaging for students to read… but also we found the sort of underlying situation with the political and socio-economic situation in the Philippines to be something that we don’t often see in the news,” Assereto said.
Furthermore, since Riordan has a large Filipino American population, Assereto feels that Filipino culture is “one culture that’s underrepresented in literature” and hopes the novel will “expose students to the culture of many of their classmates.”
They both really enjoyed the novel. Fern “loved the book,” and its mystery element, and Assereto said the book made the cut between “good writing and good literature.”
Before the book was officially revealed to the student body on May 6, Assereto shared the novel with the Book Club in April to give them time to make a promotional video to put on telecast the following month.
Book Club member Hong said the book “covers some important topics and perspectives, from the struggles of staying in touch with your culture to global issues we might overlook.”
The summer reading assessment, published in the May 2 Riordan newsletter, is split into an art portion and a written portion for R-Time and Religious Studies class, respectively.
For R-Time, students will be required to create a physical, personalized version of a “Balikbayan Box,” a care or gift package sent by Filipinos living overseas to their families in the Philippines.
For the written assessment, students have two options. Each option focuses on a certain CME, which are also called the Characteristics of Marianist Education. The first option focuses on the “cry of the poor” (Service, Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation) and the second focuses on sainthood (Formation in Faith).
