Holding Up the Universe

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becomes the most notable quote)—when Libby wears her purple bikini and hands out sheets of flier in public that says “YOU ARE WANTED” along with her personal story—memorable or meaningful. The two become acquainted in detention classes and realize they’re two outcasts with similar problems.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Libby several years ago and being a little girl suffered a very great loss in her life, which led her to eat to fill the emptiness of her heart. Also every other character in this story, like in All the Bright Places, offers absolutely nothing to the storyline and they only add to that awful stereotype that “everyone in high school is an asshole” and “the world is against me because everyone hates me in school”. And while the narrative does explore backgrounds as to how they both came to be, it still feels like a means to an end which lends me to say it doesn't feel REAL or GENUINE.

And the horrible sluggish pacing in this book just amplified that even more because it felt like certain points were rehashed and told instead of shown. Even though Libby has lost two-thirds of her weight, she’s still the one occupying the largest space in a high school classroom.

Holding Up the Universe is a story about finding courage when you feel you don't have any, and not letting anyone sway you from what you want. Let me help out our community of readers by pointing straight out what the book is/what it is not so as to avoid judging it just by its blurb alone. But before that, just an excerpt from the book about “judging” *winks*: “Life is too short to judge others.Don't go into reading Jennifer Niven's new novel, Holding Up the Universe, thinking this is going to be identical to the phenomenal All the Bright Places (which made my list of the best books I read last year), in tone or the emotional power of its subject matter. However, after seeing a lot of people give it 5 stars – despite all of the problematic aspects I had seen – I decided to pick this book up for the roast. Once dubbed "America's Fattest Teen," when she weighed 653 pounds at her heaviest and had to be cut out of her childhood home while the media watched, she's spent the last two years being home schooled while she recovered.