holding up the universe by jennifer niven

The next day at lunch, Jack jumps on Libby as part of the game, but Libby throws him off, punching him in retaliation. Libby becomes the next target of the rodeo when she attempts to confront Kam about his assault on Iris. But because he worries about losing the people he can recognize, he goes along with the game anyway. The game is cruel, and while Jack’s friends find it funny, Jack does not. In Fat Girl Rodeo, a person non-consensually throws themselves onto a so-called “fat girl’s” back and holds on for as long as possible. Libby also befriends Iris Englebrecht, another overweight girl who becomes the first target of Seth, Kam, and Jack’s cruel “Fat Girl Rodeo” game. Initially, she has no friends when she returns to school but quickly reunites with Bailey Bishop, a kind girl she knew from her time in public school years ago. Readers learn that Libby has a very close relationship with her father, whom Libby says often unfairly receives the media’s blame for letting her become morbidly obese.

His closest friends at school are Dave “Kam” Kaminski and Seth Powell, both of whom share Jack’s reputation as a popular but perhaps callous “jock.” Jack has an “on-again, off-again everyone-assumes-we’ll-end-up-together-forever” (23) relationship with Caroline Lushamp, one of the most beautiful and popular girls at school, although their relationship is strained by Jack’s secret inability to recognize her face. Jack has two brothers, 16-year-old Marcus, and 10-year-old Dusty. Over the next few pages, readers are introduced to Jack and Libby’s family and friends. After years of homeschooling, Libby is excited but nervous about beginning her junior year at Martin Van Buren High School the next day. The book then jumps eighteen hours into the past and shifts the narration to Libby, who describes her home-rescue incident and label of “America’s fattest teen.” Readers also learn of her mother’s untimely death, which Libby suggests triggered her extreme weight gain. In the letter, Jack describes his prosopagnosia, telling the recipient that he or she is the only other person to know about Jack’s disorder. The novel begins with a letter from Jack to an unknown recipient in which he writes that he is about to do a “shitty thing” in order to “protect you and also myself” (15). Jack and Libby narrate in the present tense and from a first-person point of view, allowing readers a close look into the thoughts of the two main characters as they navigate their identities and meet the mental, social, and emotional challenges of adolescence. For example, beginning on page 164, the narration goes back three years in the past, to the night of Libby’s rescue from her home on page 185, the action returns to the present. The novel also occasionally moves forward or backward in time, as well.

Jack and Libby narrate alternating chapters.

Holding up the universe by jennifer niven