Holding Up the Universe

Young adult fiction is one of my guilty pleasures, although I now beyond the age group where I could ever be considered a young adult I find this genre is currently burgeoning with brilliant authors with some strong stories to tell and I enjoy reading them, they are an escape from the adult world back to a more innocent time when you didn't have to worry about what bills to pay and what everyone is having for dinner that evening. A time when anything was possible and you have your whole future in front of you.

Jennifer Niven has become very highly regarded in this genre after her last novel “All The Bright Things” received rave critical reviews, I haven't read that book yet however and I decided to start with Holding Up The Universe. I was lucky enough to listen to this book via audiobook as well as reading parts and whilst I do not regularly listen to audiobooks as I sometimes find they interfere with my enjoyment of the story, this adaptation was exceptional and it is highly recommended if this method of enjoying the book appeals to you more.

This is a great story of Libby Strout and Jack Masselin, two teens who are preparing to return to school after the summer break. For Libby however it is a huge undertaking, she was one “America's Fattest Teen” unable to leave her home and having had to be cut out of her bedroom by emergency services very publicly a few years before. She has spent the last years losing weight and addressing the demons which caused her to eat excessively after the death of her mother. Not having attended school for many years she is now ready to return and face the world and her peers, she is fierce and happy and with a dream to be a dancer she makes one of the most endearing heroines I've read for some time. Vulnerable and yet feisty and strong it is almost impossible not to fall in love with Libby.

Jack doesn't face a world without difficulties either, popular and enigmatic he is the centre of the popular kids at school but Jack is hiding a strange and unusual secret, he suffers from prosopagnosia, a condition which means that he is unable to recognise faces. Even the faces of the people he holds dearest he is unable to recall, he has to learn people by other identifying features such as their hair or size or sticky out ears in the case of his younger brother. Nobody is aware of Jack's secret and he tries disguising it each day, leading to awkward situations such as when he kisses his girlfriends cousin thinking it's his girlfriend and suddenly everyone is outraged at him.

Jack and Libby's worlds are about to collide, at the outset of the book we are told Jack is going to do a bad thing but we aren't aware what that thing is going to be. It is, however, going to be the catalyst that throws them both together and once they meet it begins a chain of events that will change both of their lives forever.

I literally loved this story, Jack and Libby are both incredible characters. Jack is cocky on the outside but struggling to hide his illness on the inside and so he uses his bravado to get him through. Inside he is a good guy, he tries to run with the crowd but his conscience jars him and we know he a decent human being. Libby is outwardly strong and feisty but inside she's still struggling with people bullying her for her size and shamed by the fact everyone knows about her having to be cut from her home years before. It's a story about how difficult high school can be to manoeuvre, the judgements teens make on each other and how cruel their jibes can be. How even the simplest of things can make you stand out from the crowd and how if your crimes are as heinous as Libby's and you dare to be physically different to the extreme people will go to any lengths to let you know you aren't wanted.

I read this book at the same time as watching the TV series 13 Reasons Why and whilst this book doesn't by any stretch cover bullying to the same extent the themes resonated through both and left me feeling that for all that we have become more aware of the impact bullying can have there still seems to be no end to the ability for people to be cruel in their judgement of others in the ability to make themselves feel more secure. As is said in 13 Reasons Why, of course the popular kids are cruel that's how they got popular in the first place.

I loved spending time with Jack and Libby, they are beacons of hope in a world where people allow themselves to become boxed in by the standards of others. They lift each other up and make us want to root for them and that is a very special thing.