#jack masselin

[lilmackiereads]

HOLDING UP THE UNIVERSE (2016) BY JENNIFER NIVEN - SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This week I finished Holding Up the Universe (2016) by Jennifer Niven. I found it in a Little Free Library near my parents’ house and the title and dual cover art struck me as interesting. Without reading the jacket description I took it home and devoured it within a couple days. If you haven’t read this book yet, but plan to, head to my page and read my Spoiler Free Review instead! 

The narration goes back and forth between the two lead characters, Jack – a teenage boy with prosopagnosia (a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to recognize and remember faces), and Libby — an overweight teenage girl who has been homeschooled throughout middle school due to immense weight gain from the grief of her mother’s unexpected death. This story kind-of follows the Enemies to Lovers trope, but I don’t really feel like they were ever enemies, rather they just misunderstood each other.

Beware, we now go into spoiler territory. 

Character Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Libby was my favorite because she is so courageous and fun! I think Niven really nailed what a teenage girl thinks like and what anxiety feels like. I think Libby and I would get along because she loves to read and watch sci-fi/fantasy shows. I’m not much of a dancer, but I would love to join her dance club! 

Jack I also like, but he would be hard for me to get along with in person with his jerk-persona he puts on to keep other people away. I mean he’s pretty handsome so maybe I could look past it and be “the one to change him” like Libby. Haha. I do love the relationship he has with his little brother, Dusty, and I think his internal monologue and notes are hilarious. I think after he sees that Libby, Dusty, and a male side character are getting bullied he becomes a much braver person and that’s when I started to genuinely like him. His transformation, cocky attitude, and incredible curly hair, reminds me a lot of Patrick Verona from 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). If they make a movie, I need Jack to be a total H-O-T-T-I-E.

I like that Libby is not your “typical” Mary Sue beauty that so many teen romance novels have. I have never read a book from the perspective of a young woman of her size (300 to 600lbs+ over the course of the book). While Eleanor and Park (2012) by Rainbow Rowell features a teen who is a little overweight and not your average beauty, Niven choosing to make Libby “America’s Fattest Teen” is really committing to showing what life is like for someone who has experienced emotional and physical grief for a big portion of her life and how society treats that person and their relationships. Also, there are not a lot of books out there that feature someone of mixed race as the lead, such as Jack who has a white dad and a black mom. I think it’s interesting how he and his brothers are described as looking very different and how their appearance somewhat influences how other characters treat them.

While I adored Dusty, and Libby’s two main friends, Bailey and Rachel, I think many of the other side characters were not super memorable. Iris and Jayvee and Libby’s dad were ok, but most of the other side characters didn’t make much of an impact in my opinion (or have a lot of growth) which perhaps is part of the point. I can’t tell if Niven did this on purpose to show that not everyone grows out of their high school phase/ is not as special and mature as Libby and Jack or if she just didn’t know how to make the side characters dimensional.

Plot Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I had many scenes that I adored as well as others that completely horrified me. 

Adored:

*Libby flaunting her body-ody-ody in her purple bikini at school and Libby’s bravery on page 310:

*Libby saying “no” to the Damsel’s dance team after they asked her to lose weight to become a member of the team... and then starting her own dance group!

*Libby and Jack’s first date and dance at Clara’s pizzeria. The restaurant itself sounds fun. I would totally go there!

*References to quotations and scenes as well as plot parallels to We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) by Shirey Jackson, “The Crucible” (1953) by Arthur Miller and To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee.

*Jack’s notes about being the kid of a parent with cancer and building robots.

*Dusty and his purse <3 

*The Shitkicker robot with its OWN purse! <3 <3

Horrified:

*Jack accidentally making out with his girlfriend’s cousin... twice.

*Jack taking Libby on a date out of town. It still wasn’t 100% clear to me if he was trying to surprise her or trying to avoid being seen with her.

*The game “Fat Girl Rodeo” --- this stressed me out because I had never heard of it and I don’t really like being touched. I never really thought about how awful people make up games about peoples’ weight and that some jackass would hear about it and think that it was a good idea to copy it. That would be my fear about this book becoming a movie is that if they showed it in the trailer people would see it out of context and it could become an awful TikTok trend. 

I figured at some point that Jack hiding the fact that he knows about Libby’s former title as “America’s Fattest Teen” and that he snuck into her house the day she was rescued from her home would come back to bite him. But whether it be him revealing the truth about stealing the book and magnet on purpose or accidentally I wasn’t sure. What I didn’t put together until the end is that Libby had always been curious about Jack, too, when she realized that he and his brothers were the brothers she imagined being friends with and called “Dean, Sam, and Cas” after her favorite characters from Supernatural. This threw my right back to my teenage years as I was obsessed with them in high school.

Cover Art: 5 out of 5 stars

While you should not judge a book by its cover, the cover art for this story is amazing. The blue paint schmears are very symbolic as how Jack sees people in his life while the blue marble is how he sees Libby. The marble also reminds me of Men in Black (1997) when the whole universe fits inside the keychain on the cat’s collar. When you take off this paper jacket to reveal the hard cover, the book is a beautiful baby blue with silver text and a sparkly heart. This book has a lot of love in it and is just very cute. I think I will take the paper cover off and leave it in my bookshelf with the baby blue and silver text instead because it is more eye-catching than the white book jacket with blue and black design in my opinion.

Reread-ability: Possibly!

Due to the fact that I read this book so quickly, I obviously liked it. However, it doesn’t beat my favorite three favorite teen love stories, The Fault in Our Stars (2012) and Turtles All the Way Down (2017) by John Green and Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda (2015) by Becky Albertalli, the three of which made me laugh and cry. HUTU made me laugh and get a bit sad at points, but not enough to actually cry. Perhaps if there was a film version of it then the visuals might be enough to do it for me.

I do want to keep it in my bookshelf in case I have kids, or a movie is made of it because I think it has a really good anti-bullying message and would be good for people to read to open up their world, especially for people who are prejudice against heavyset, racial, or disability differences. I don’t know if this book would lessen their prejudice, but I hope it would at least stir a little emotion.

[furiouspeachnightmare]

I haven't finished "Holding Up The Universe", in fact I'm at the point where Jack's been thinking about his stupidity and what a douchebag he is. And yes he definitely is! If I was on Libby's shoes, I prolly would do the same thing and would hate him for eternity but same as Libby, I'd feel sorry somehow for Jack too.

"Sometimes they're just shitty people. Sometimes people have been shitty to them. Sometimes they're shitty because they're afraid. Sometimes they choose to be shitty to others before others can be shitty to them. Sometimes someone doesn't like who he is, but then there's this other kid who knows exactly who he is, and that can make that first kid feel even worse about themselves. " - Jack

I think, Jack is just trying to fit in. He wanted to act like the other peers and concealed his weakness - prosopagnosia. To feel the "belongingness", he did what his friends wanted him to do despite of being against it. He was too scared to be left out, to be an outcast and so he did what he did. He became a douchebag.

Jack's not different from us or is it vice versa? We changed ourselves, tryna be a cool kid and do what cool kids do. We try so hard to fit in, that sometimes we forget who we really are. Even though Libby's always been bullied, I admire her braveness and resilience. She's far from perfect and would do things too, like self-defensive shittiness but what differs her from Jack is that she did a step in the right direction. A big leap. While Jack's, still being Jack.

I'm not putting a hate on Jack, in fact, I feel pity and understand his situation. I'm looking forward to what's happening next. Jack still has his good heart and will probably straight things out. And oh, I wanna find out how this hate blossom into love, if there's any, because I'm totally unsure abou that.

[lilybookaholic]

Te da la impresión de que nadie te comprende, y que estás solo, y eso te pone más furioso y piensas: ¿por qué nadie se da cuenta? ¿por qué no viene alguien y dice: "mira, pareces agobiado por el mundo. Déjame cargar ese peso un rato para que tú no tengas que llevarlo todo el tiempo"? Pero eres tú quien debe levantar la voz. ¡Levanta la voz si tienes algo que decir!

Jennifer Niven - Holding Up The Universe.

[daydreamin-since-forevs]

“sometimes it’s actually about the other person and you just happen to be there. Like sometimes the other person needs to learn a lesson or go through an experience, good or bad, and you’re an accessory in some way, like a supporting actor in whatever their scene happens to be.”

-Holding Up The Universe, Jennifer Niven

[ashtonrwini]

All The Bright Places // Holding Up The Universe 

by Jennifer Niven 

“You are wanted. Big, small, tall, short, pretty, plain, friendly, shy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself. Especially not yourself.”

[thenorthernraven]

Book Review #1: Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven

Heads Up: Contains a few spoilers!

Have you ever felt like an outcast? hated? different? Have you ever experienced walking on what seems like an endless hallway where every one looked at you with judging eyes while whispering hateful things to each other? Libby Strout has. In fact, that’s what her everyday in junior year was like. A series of bullying, being made fun of, receiving notes with words like “whore”, “fat-ass”, and “you are not wanted” written all over them, being called “Flabby Stout” and every possible disgusting name she does not deserve to be called. School life for Libby was nothing but an impetus for a panic attack, that is, before she met Jack Masselin. The swaggy boy everyone liked, cool and collected, the boy who’s got everything -- including a neurological disorder called prosopagnosia which inhibits him from recognizing faces, even of those he loves. To make matters worse for Jack, no one knows about this flaw of his, making him pretty perfect from the surface. Libby Strout and Jack Masselin’s worlds collided through an unfortunate event, and at first, everything seemed to get worse until it reached a certain point, upon which it turned out better and better for the both of them. It’s a story about two people who are just trying to get through high school, but inevitably bumped into each other and realized they found the very piece of their lives they never knew they needed. 

One of the things I really admired about Jennifer Niven’s Holding Up The Universe was the fact that the characters felt extremely real. Libby and Jack both struggled with things that real people do, not only weight and panic attacks for Libby, and prosopagnosia for Jack, but also bullying, peer pressure, and family problems to mention a few. Other characters also seemed as real as Libby and Jack, like Caroline Lushamp, the popular, pretty girl who was once a geeky nerd, or Iris Engelbrecht, another teen who gets bullied for her weight but is too afraid to speak up. The book was able to provide its readers with a very accurate picture of life in high school, as in all the drama, crazy parties, cafeteria fights, and of course, the bullying; which I think would really allow readers to feel and relate to the characters and their stories. Another thing that I appreciated was how true and complex these characters were, from their physical appearances to their thoughts, and how surprising their actions can be. Libby and Jack always had me guessing their next moves! Lastly, I’m also very delighted to the fact that, even from the first few pages of the book, it was able to make me really laugh out loud at the hilarious lines these characters mutter. I liked the book enough that I finished it in less than 24 hours. 

However, there are also a few things I quite personally disliked about the book. One was the fact that, during the first quarter of the book, it was really slow-paced and relaxed, as if it was taking its time making the perfect picture of high school (which, as I’ve mentioned, it was able to do), until Libby and Jack met, upon which the story suddenly became fast-paced which really allowed little detail as to how deep the character’s relationships became. I hoped for a few more points, for example conversations, between Jack and Libby that could give me a lead as to how much they knew or liked each other before anything else happened. In addition to this, I also disliked how the story ended on a cliff-hanger which, again, resulted to giving me little detail as to the fate of, not only Libby and Jack, but also of the other characters. Up until this point I’m wondering whether or not Jack’s parents ever resolved their conflict, or was the divorce final? Did Caroline Lushamp ever change back to her geeky self? Did the bullies end their bullying days and did the bullied get justice? I’m even wondering what the heck happened to Mick from Copenhagen! These cliff-hangers could be fun, for it allows us to make hypothetical futures for these characters, but then again, I personally would have liked a few more detail. 

Overall, I think Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven is an inspiring book designed to help people, especially teens, with all of the struggles and challenges that come with their age. It’s an eye-opener, for readers to be able to see both sides of the story and to make them realize the essence of understanding before giving judgement; and a reminder for everyone to always be nice, for each person is struggling with something we know nothing about. 

I’ve read this book twice already, and would not hesitate to read it a few more times in the future! I’ve also read “All the Bright Places” by the same author and I thought it was just brilliant! Reminder: all of the things I wrote here are my own personal thoughts about the book.  

 3 out of 5 stars.

[comingfromthe60s-blog]

This book was totally awesome, and Jennifer Niven became my favorite female author since I’ve finished it..

[ambivertchildposts]

Holding Up The Universe

"It's the suddenness of life changing in an instant that makes me anxious when I sleep and makes me tell myself to breathe when I'm awake" - Libby Strout

[gedankendrama]

Stell dir vor, dass ich dich liebe // Jennifer Niven

[jjelliacee]

Jack Masselin & Libby Strout from Holding Up The Universe

[lilmackiereads]

Holding Up the Universe (2016) by Jennifer Niven - Spoiler Free Review

THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER FREE. IF YOU WANT SPOILERS, READ THIS VERSION OF THE REVIEW.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars 

This week I finished Holding Up the Universe (2016) by Jennifer Niven. I found it in a Little Free Library near my parents’ house and the title and dual cover art struck me as interesting. Without reading the jacket description I took it home and devoured it within a couple days. The narration goes back and forth between the two lead characters, Jack -- a teenage boy with prosopagnosia (a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to recognize and remember faces), and Libby --- an overweight teenage girl who has been homeschooled throughout middle school due to immense weight gain from the grief of her mother’s unexpected death. This story kind-of follows the Enemies to Lovers trope, but I don’t really feel like they were ever enemies, rather they just misunderstood each other. 

Character Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Libby was my favorite because she is so courageous and fun! I think Niven really nailed what a teenage girl thinks like and what anxiety feels like. I think Libby and I would get along because she loves to read and watch sci-fi/fantasy shows. I’m not much of a dancer, but I would love to join her dance club!

Jack I also like, but he would be hard for me to get along with in person with his jerk-persona he puts on to keep other people away. I mean he’s pretty handsome so maybe I could look past it and be “the one to change him” like Libby. Haha. I do love the relationship he has with his little brother, Dusty, and I think his internal monologue and notes are hilarious. I think after he sees that Libby, Dusty, and a male side character are getting bullied he becomes a much braver person and that’s when I started to genuinely like him. His transformation, cocky attitude, and incredible curly hair, reminds me a lot of Patrick Verona from 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). If they make a movie, I need Jack to be a total H-O-T-T-I-E.

I like that Libby is not your “typical” Mary Sue beauty that so many teen romance novels have. I have never read a book from the perspective of a young woman of her size (300 to 600lbs+ over the course of the book). While Eleanor and Park (2012) by Rainbow Rowell features a teen who is a little overweight and not your average beauty, Niven choosing to make Libby “America’s Fattest Teen” is really committing to showing what life is like for someone who has experienced emotional and physical grief for a big portion of her life and how society treats that person and their relationships. Also, there are not a lot of books out there that feature someone of mixed race as the lead, such as Jack who has a white dad and a black mom. I think it’s interesting how he and his brothers are described as looking very different and how their appearance somewhat influences how other characters treat them.

While I adored Dusty, and Libby’s two main friends, Bailey and Rachel, I think many of the other side characters were not super memorable. Iris and Jayvee and Libby’s dad were ok, but most of the other side characters didn’t make much of an impact in my opinion (or have a lot of growth) which perhaps is part of the point. I can’t tell if Niven did this on purpose to show that not everyone grows out of their high school phase/ is not as special and mature as Libby and Jack or if she just didn’t know how to make the side characters dimensional. 

Plot Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

For my favorite scenes, see my Spoiler-Filled Review. 

Cover Art: 5 out of 5 stars

While you should not judge a book by its cover, the cover art for this story is amazing. The blue paint schmears are very symbolic as how Jack sees people in his life while the blue marble is how he sees Libby. The marble also reminds me of Men in Black (1997) when the whole universe fits inside the keychain on the cat’s collar. When you take off this paper jacket to reveal the hard cover, the book is a beautiful baby blue with silver text and a sparkly heart. This book has a lot of love in it and is just very cute. I think I will take the paper cover off and leave it in my bookshelf with the baby blue and silver text instead because it is more eye-catching than the white book jacket with blue and black design in my opinion.

Reread-ability: Possibly!

Due to the fact that I read this book so quickly, I obviously liked it. However, it doesn’t beat my favorite three favorite teen love stories, The Fault in Our Stars (2012) and Turtles All the Way Down (2017) by John Green and Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda (2015) by Becky Albertalli, the three of which made me laugh and cry. HUTU made me laugh and get a bit sad at points, but not enough to actually cry. Perhaps if there was a film version of it then the visuals might be enough to do it for me.

I do want to keep it in my bookshelf in case I have kids, or a movie is made of it because I think it has a really good anti-bullying message and would be good for people to read to open up their world, especially for people who are prejudice against heavyset, racial, or disability differences. I don’t know if this book would lessen their prejudice, but I hope it would at least stir a little emotion.

[guardofcitadel]

books: Holding up the universe by Jennifer Niven (x)

“ We're all weird and damaged in our own way. You're not the only one.”

[sophxnath]

We can't fight another person's battle, no matter how much we want to.

Jennifer Niven, Holding Up the Universe

[alexandryle-blog]

You are wanted

Libby Strout, Holding Up The Universe

[dippindoodles]

Quote from Holding Up the Universe (Jennifer Niven) x

YOU ARE LOVED. ❤

if you haven’t seen the time-lapse video WATCH IT HERE !

[madewithpastels]

HOLDING UP THE UNIVERSE

4.5 /5 STARS from me, no need for explanation...because... truly, in love with this book, I LAUGHED, TEARY-SMILES, S ALL GOOD!!! summary i took from:

About Holding Up the Universe. From the author of the New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places comes a heart-wrenching story about what it means to see someone—and love someone—for who they truly are. Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America's Fattest Teen.”

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom’s death, she’s been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby’s ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for EVERY POSSIBILITY LIFE HAS TO OFFER. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything. Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He’s the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything in new and bad-ass ways, but he can’t understand what’s going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don’t get too close to anyone. Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game—which lands them in group counseling and community service—Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. . . . Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours.

source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/237457/holding-up-the-universe-by-jennifer-niven/9780385755955/

★★★★★★

Everytime i read this, i always imagined a character named Jack Masselin as SUPER DUPER KYLE. because Jack is goofy, awkward, and nice :) + also creative! and... a (such a dork-flirty-boy)..but I’ve got some alternatives hehe.

I thought..... it’s because, I had seen THE AFTER PARTY

and it was super good, he’s reallllyyyy GOOOOOOOOOD! check out the movie on NETFLIX! 

Dearest @jenniferniven​ please please please...I hope you, the team, the managers, the publishers, the agencies, the pr, the filmmakers, the producers, and all...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE making this come true #netflix original movie / anywhere on the MOVIE SCREENS, because we need more REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT BODY POSITIVITY AND MIX-DIVERSE CAST! I support you big time! <3 

★★★★★★

here goes my fan-cast: 

LIBBY STROUTS

I was having a hard time to imagine what would LIBBY look like? she’s a girl,  she’s in teen (hi-skool), she’s pretty and unique also talented dancing girl, so...i tried to a bit of quick research to find “Libby”. I think, I wanted them to be casted, like a lot...some of these girls, are fresh & up coming rising stars, model, public figures, internet darlings,, I want “LIBBY” to look natural, just the way Libby is /does ;) 

1. Barbie Ferreira

i found her thru this article, she’s one of the coolest girl ever : https://www.teenvogue.com/story/barbie-ferreira-reclaiming-fat 

OMG!!! SHE’S PERFECT AS LIBBY! also she’s going to join an HBO SHOW “EUPHORIA” A TEEN DRAMA series, produced by DRAKE! aaah can’t wait to see them. 

https://www.instagram.com/barbienox/?hl=en

2. Naomi Shimada

reading her interview, made me smile, yes we all deserve to be seen and heard :”) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/refuse-made-invisible-says-naomi-shimada-face-amazons-new-campaign/

https://www.instagram.com/naomishimada/?hl=en

3. Danielle Macdonald

First time, I saw Danielle’s performance was on Easy, Netflix, Season 2. She’s lovely & also a debuted rapper on her latest movie Patti Cake$! AH-MAZING!

4. Beanie Feldstein

LADY BIRD! NO NEED TO EXPLAIN MORE, CUZ SHE’S NOT JUST JONAH HILL’S LIL SIS, BUT SHE’S AWESOME :)

yep, obsessed with the fams, hehehe: 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheridanwatson/photos-that-prove-jonah-hill-and-beanie-feldste

5. Lulu Bonfils 

internet darlings/ models, also had some campaigns along with Barbie Nox too... love her for being confident :) 

★★★★★★

as for JACK MASSELIN

1. SUPER DUPER KYLE

like I told ya before, yes cannot get enough of him <3 

sc: http://greenlabel.com/just-keep-swimming-playground-conversations-with-super-duper-kyle/

2.  Jacob Latimore

Watched him on Collateral Beauty, The Chi, Candy Jar (Netflix), also MAZE RUNNER?! remember, yo he gonna GO BIG!!! he’s perfect as Jack. 

3. Jacob Artist

I saw him on Glee... he’s good loookin! also heard, he’s coming to AHS SEASON 6!

that’s all i can think about....and as for the DIRECTOR’S WISHLIST, yep, s all in my head he he he: 

my #wishlist directors: Kay Cannon, Abby Kohn, Anne Fletcher, Rick Famuyiwa, Geremy Jasper

hope you read, enjoy :)

thanks for being an amazing author, you inspire me <3

@jenniferniven  @penguinteen @penguinrandomhouse @penguindesign