Status Updates From Patron Saints of Nothing

I met a knew character named Seth. He seems like a comforting and nice guy who almost seems like a brother. The main character and Seth seem are best friends and tell each other almost everything, but they never "get too deep into things" (Ribay 5). I can see why they're best friends. They trust each other and they're comfortable with each other.

I like the variety of characters in this book. Seth is a character that is a complete polar of the main protagonist Jay, "he simply shrugs and takes another hit... My desire to smoke has not yet passed my fear of getting caught"(Ribay 2). This makes me wonder what they have in common that lead them to be friends.

So far I have picked up that the main character originates from the Phillipines and still has family living there while now living in what appears to be Michigan. I like that the main character is a teenager because it can be realatable and a new plot is discovered when Jay says, "If I had tried to get him to talk about it, it would have made things worse" (Ribay 7).

I'm curious why the book opened with talking about the main character's past experience with death. When he was ten years old he tried to rescue a dog but it wouldn't eat so over time the dog's eyes "never reopened" (Ribay xv). I believe there will be more death later on in this book and I'm curious if the main character will be affected by death differently or the same in the future.

I don't yet fully understand the direction this book is going but we do know that the main character feels pressured by his family to do well in school. We find out that he was accepted to Michigan University but his dad said "it's not Harvard" (Ribay 5). This was shocking to me because why would his father not be proud of his son for making it into a college?

Randy Ribay begins this book with a moment of intimate reflection between the main character Jason and his friend Seth, thinking about their relationship throughout the years. Based on this he seems like a quiet reserved guy, marked by his description that he and Seth "never get too deep into things" (Ribay 5). Later he gets his "call" to leave his "status quo" (hero archetype) from his dad telling his cousin died.

So far, the friendship between Jay and Seth seems like it is important to the two of them even if they don't talk about serious issues in their lives. Im curious to see why Seth gets upset when Jay would ask about serious things like when "Seth's parents were going through a divorce" (Ribay 5). I wonder if there will be change in this friendship and they will begin to talk about serious things.