Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven (2016)

Jack is about to make a terrible mistake, maybe the worst one of his life. He’s going to walk up to Libby and grab onto her in the middle of the cafeteria during lunch on one of the first days of school and hold onto her, until he wins “Fat Girl Rodeo”. To everyone, Libby seems overweight, but they have no idea how far she’s come. After her mother died in fifth grade, she went into a downward spiral, and copped by eating. At her worst, she had to be cut out of her house because she couldn’t fit through the doorway, but since then she’s lost almost half her weight and just returned to school after a six year hiatus. Jack doesn’t know any of this, but he does know that after he grabs Libby, nothing is going to be the same for her, or even for him. So, he gives her a letter. A letter that says how sorry he is, a letter that promises he’s protecting her, a letter telling her his deepest secret: that he can’t recognize faces. A letter that’s going to bind them forever.

Okay, so I get that a lot of people thought this book, or at least the synopsis, is offensive. And I get it. It doesn’t sound like the most body positive story ever, and in fact could create a really false view of the narrative of someone who doesn’t have the atypical body. Two thoughts helped me pick up this book. One, Jennifer Niven has talked about how she struggled with her weight as a teenager, so she could actually tell a truthful narrative. Second, I think Niven is able to write great stories about topics that make us uncomfortable at times. I saw this specifically in her book All the Bright Places, which deals with the mind of a suicidal teen.

First, let’s talk about Libby as a character. I really enjoyed that fact that she was “overweight” because, through my many years of reading, I think she’s the first character I’ve read that isn’t stick thin. We need characters that actually reflect the bodies of human beings, not just models, and so if anything, this Libby moves us forward in creating realistic bodies for out characters. Libby was also very in touch with her sexuality, and knew that she wanted to have sex at some point, which I loved. I’ve observed that it’s kind of written off that anyone who doesn’t have the “typical” body is asexual, and no one really thinks of them as sexual beings. Also, for the most part, Libby was really confident, and knew that she deserved to be treated with respect. Not only that, she worked hard at changing her peer’s perspective of people with bigger body types. Still, I found her doing things that felt like it came out of a Huffington Post feel good story. It seemed like Niven was trying to make her an inspirational character.

On the other hand, Jack was not my favorite character ever. Now, he was definately going through some stuff, like his dad’s affair and coming to terms with the fact that he was face blind, but that still didn’t excuse him for being a jerk. And I’m not just talking about the game, but about him in general. I felt like he hung with Libby when it was convenient for him, and then dropped her. The only thing that sort of redeemed himself for me was that he (mostly) recognized when he was being a jerk, and tried to change. Concerning the romance between Jack and Libby, I also have mixed feelings. In my opinion, their relationship kind of came out from nowhere. Like, they hung out twice, had one date, and all of a sudden they loved each other. In other words, there wasn’t enough development in the relationship to feel like it was real.

For me, Holding Up the Universe read very well. I flew through it in three days, and I thought the writing was great. It’s certainly not a book for everyone, but is worth a shot.

3 Stars