Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven // Spoiler Free Discussion

I will be the first to admit I didn't like All The Bright Places, so picking up Holding Up the Universe was a leap of faith. But I surprisingly really really liked it. I just wanted to cry with how much I liked it and how great it was. I don't have a bad word to say about it.

My favourite thing about this book was the diverse characters. Both Libby and Jack are very different from your stereotypical protagonist. Libby was known as America's fattest teen and she is now in a place where she has lost a lot of her weight but she's still considered 'fat'. And so her journey in this book is very much dealing with body image issues and also dealing with people who think they are above her because of her weight. Despite this, Libby is a bad ass. She is confident (although she falters from time to time) and super caring. She's an aspiring character for readers.

Jack is a pretty diverse character too. He's half African American and Jewish if I remember correctly. And let's be honest, when in books is the black guy the cool guy? Jack pretty much the super cool guy stereotype from high school. He really struggles with his stance in high school because of his disease and it makes being himself really hard for him. He is super moody and a bit of an asshole (which I love i have to admit).

I also really enjoyed reading about how he deals with having prosopagnosia (which if you didn't know is when a person doesn't have the ability to recognise any faces). It's a very different sort of illness than I'm used to reading in books because it's not a very well known. You don't hear of people acquiring 'face-blindness'. So watching Jack deal with this disease without his parents help is really inspiring. And also I feel it brings attention to a lot of kids who struggle to tell their parents that they're struggling with things like mental illnesses.

Overall, the story had really good flow. It was super easy to read. Because it was super easy to read I read it so quickly. I didn't feel the need to stop reading! The book has two different point of views, (Libby and Jack's) and the use of those two point of views was really effective. It wasn't even noticeable that the book would switch from each point of view. It was nice to read about the two of them dealing with their demons and then coming together.

This book really makes you think about things that I wouldn't normally think about in my life. Like bullying and body-shaming. It makes readers aware that people may have things going on in their private life that they we as people may not know about. So many characters are not aware of what's going on in Jack's life and it really translates into our life and how we treat people.

Hope you've enjoyed this little discussion and hope you've been enjoying your new year

Some songs I'm loving right now:

Blow Your Mind (Mwah) - Dua Lipa

Shape of You - Ed Sheeran

Touch - Little Mix

Water Under The Bridge - Adele

Paradise City - Guns N' Roses

Much love

- E