Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven, Book Review

Holding Up The Universe has shaken me to the core. It was sitting on my shelf for months until I finally picked it up a few days ago and I'm so glad I did.

Niven writing is real and beautiful and truly brings her characters to life. I started this book thinking that it was just another simple YA love story but boy was I wrong.

"Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, but no one's ever looked past her weight to see who she really is. Since her mum's death, Libby's been hiding, but now she's ready for high school

I want to be the girl who can do anything

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin too- sexy, aloof, and too cool for school. But Jack's swaggering confidence is hiding a secret he must keep at all costs. 

Be charming. Be hilarious. Don't get too close to anyone.

Then Jack meets Libby. And their worlds change. 

Because sometimes when you meet someone, the whole universe just comes into focus. "

From the first page, I was dragged in. Even though I absolutely hate the first person with a passion (in most cases it just makes the story feel bland and cheap) Niven managed to somehow write an entire book in the first person that actually wasn't shit. Just for that, she should get some sort of reward. The last thing I expected from this book was that the main characters would have such real but uncommon problems/secrets. I fully expected Jack secret to be that he is shy or that maybe he had a twin brother that no one knew about... you know, the typical YA stuff. 

When I read that he had prosopagnosia I was shocked. I heard of it before by accident when watching a really bad kdrama and since then I was fascinated by it. Most of the time when I hear of rare diseases I'm like yeah that makes sense, it's hella messed up but what disease isn't right? But I never could wrap my head around prosopagnosia, I just can't imagine or understand how damn difficult it must be to look in the mirror and not even know who you are.

I don't know why but I really like portrayals of people with rare diseases or with truly complicated lives because it makes it stand out from all the other YA books. Because let's be honest although being shy is difficult and yes some people in high school can be assholes but there is only so much you can write about that yet YA authors still milk that cow dry.

That's probably why I loved this book. Although, like every other YA book it is focused on high school romance it still focuses on real and not talked about issues.

One of the things that I thought was done quite well, we're the casual references to the racism that Jack faced. Although it is not a main part of the story, whenever Jack gets in trouble, his mum points out that he needs to be more careful about his behaviour because of his race. I think the way Niven wrote it was really clever, and on many occasions, I had to stop for a second because of the realisation of how difficult life for a person of colour can be.

Now moving on to Libby. God, I loved her character, as a slightly chubbier girl I loved her positivity and wittiness. It's very rare to see a chubby girl portrayed anywhere in media or in books, especially one that loves herself and doesn't make weight into a personality trait. I feel like most portrayals of overweight people is very obnoxious and they make them a victim of something big and honestly I hate it. I always wished for a character like Libby, who showed the world that people are more than the weight and can throw a good punch regardless of how they look.

Overall I think it was such a good book and I would recommend this to everyone, it's funny, well written and I loved it so much I wish I could read it all over again straight away. I do wish it was longer, that Libby ended up getting tested and that someone punched Jack's dad so hard that all his teeth fell out... But you know what? I still love it and I'll probably come back to it many more times.

Rating: 9.5/10 but only because no one punched Jack's dad💁

Hope you enjoyed this review, I do have a tendency to ramble sometimes so sorry if some of the stuff doesn't make much sense (ya girl really is trying 😂😖).

Hope you have a nice day my lovelies and I'll see you in the next post!