Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 05/01/2019 *Starred Review* After finding out about his cousin Jun’s violent death, Jay Reguero travels from America to the Philippines to uncover how such a gentle person met such a grim end. He finds that the place that he remembers—the place of his birth—has changed in the face of a sweeping drug war initiated by President Rodrigo Duterte, a war that Jun’s father, Tito Maning, enthusiastically endorses. Jay digs into the circumstances of Jun’s death, while navigating the sinuous history between family members, including the schism created by his own father's decision to raise his children in America. Jay’s investigations are an intriguing setup for what is actually a deep, nuanced, and painfully real family drama. Jay himself is a relatable character for biracial readers straddling two different cultures. This dynamic comes into play both when he tries to convey his feelings to his American friends and when he travels abroad and is treated like an outsider by other Filipinos despite looking the same. Ribay’s focus, however, is on showing the current-day war on drugs ravaging Filipino society, characterized by extrajudicial vigilante killings endorsed by the highest levels of government. By deftly weaving key details into Jay’s quest for the truth, Ribay provides a much-needed window for young people of the West to better understand the Filipino history of colonization, occupation, and revolution. - Copyright 2019 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 06/01/2019 Gr 10 Up—Integrating snippets of Tagalog and Bikol, author Ribay displays a deep friendship between two 17-year-old cousins: Jay, born in the Philippines but raised in the United States since infancy, and Jun, born and raised in a gated community in Manila. Jay, considered white in an all-white school, is starting to get acceptances (and rejections) from colleges and finds out while playing video games that Jun, with whom he corresponded for years via "actual letters—not email or texts or DMs," is dead. His Filipino father doesn't want to talk about it, but his North American mother reveals that Jun was using drugs. Jay blames his uncle, a police chief, for his murder after researching the dictatorship of Rodrigo Duterte (the book includes a handy author's note and a list of articles and websites), who has sanctioned and perpetrated the killing of between 12,000 and 20,000 drug addicts by police and vigilantes since 2016. Jay, armed with his stack of letters, returns to Manila to search for the truth. Ribay weaves in Jun's letters so readers witness Jun's questions and his attempts to reconcile the inequity around him with his faith. Jay follows Jun's footsteps into the slums of Manila, the small house of his activist aunts, and the Catholic parish of his uncle, a village priest, and learns painful truths about his family, his home country, and himself. VERDICT Part mystery, part elegy, part coming of age, this novel is a perfect convergence of authentic voice and an emphasis on inner dialogue around equity, purpose, and reclaiming one's lost cultural identity.—Sara Lissa Paulson, City-As-School High School, New York City - Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.