Libby was once named the Fattest Teen in the World. Quite a title to give a girl who has just lost her mom and is scared to go to school because of her peers bullying her. Libby hasn’t been to school since 5th grade, and now, on her first day back at high school, she punches a popular boy in the face, named Jack.
Jack is a popular, well liked guy, but he is face-blind, meaning he doesn’t recognize any faces, even his family. He recognizes everyone based on distinctive or not so distinctive features. At school one day, his friends were playing one of their favorite games, Fat Girl Rodeo, where they grab onto a girl and try to stay on as long as possible, like a rodeo mechanical bull. Jack joins in, and the girl he grabs is Libby.
What happens next is unpredictable, as Jack and Libby decide to forgive each other and maybe they will become friends, or maybe even more.
Jennifer Niven always has such heart string pulling books. This book was hard to read, learning about what both Jack and Libby had to deal with in the hard years of high school. I liked how this book was written from two perspectives. I think that if it wasn’t like this, then the book would have seemed very biased towards one character and their point of view. I would definitely recommend this book to any fan of The Fault in Our Stars or books similar to this. I would also recommend other Jennifer Niven books, as they are equally good as Holding up the Universe.